Diamond Hill Plywood Co. 200 - Ford Post-Race Quotes

JEFF BURTON-9-Cottman Transmission Ford Taurus (Finished 2nd) - "I thought we were a little better than they (Biffle) were early in the race and the middle part of the race, but there at the end, we made an adjustment and my car did not respond to it. It just made my car looser. It didn't make it turn any better, it just made it looser, and it was already loose to start with. I was wanting to just make mine turn better and hopefully not make it any looser off of the corner, and all it did was make it looser. They did the best job. I'm proud of those guys, but I'm disappointed for us. I love Darlington and I was really hoping to win here again. Finishing second is good, it's just not good enough."

GREG BIFFLE-60-Charter Communications Ford Taurus (Finished 1st) - "This is really a special win. Our thoughts and prayers are going out to Jack Roush. He lost his father this last week and we're thinking about everybody. I'm so excited to get the Charter car in victory lane at Darlington. With the new walls and everything, I think that side of the car is clean and I'm pretty excited about that. The guys did a great job. We had a little bit of trouble with the glue coming off of the lug nuts on one stop and then they just ripped one off when it counted and got me out to the front. This car ran really good here today." HOW IMPORTANT WAS TIRE MANAGEMENT TODAY? "Burton was putting a lot of pressure on us; he had a really good car, too. We're going to win some more of these. We probably should have won Rockingham and had an engine failure, and the engine ran really good today. It was a really strong engine and I'm really happy with it. The guys just did a fantastic job today." MORE BIFFLE. "I'll tell you what, these guys did a great job on the Charter car today and ripped off a great pit stop when it counted and got me out in the lead. We had a good car all day; Jeff Burton had a good car. This Darlington race track is just awesome to race on. My National Guard car is just as good for tomorrow, and I'm really excited about it. This experience is just paying off for me down the road." HOW MANY ADJUSTMENTS DID YOU HAVE TO MAKE TO THE CAR TODAY? "Really very little. Brad(Parrott) and all of the guys did a real thorough job getting the car the way I wanted it. We just adjusted on some tire pressure and a little bit of wedge, and the thing ran really good all day and I'm excited about it." WHERE WERE YOU ABLE TO PASS CARS ON THE TRACK? "My strongest suit was one and two, and I was able to get down below them coming through there and they'd give up the spot, which is what you've got to do. That's some place I'm not as strong on the NEXTEL Cup car as I want to be, so we're going to make some changes tonight and see what we can do tomorrow. This car here was really, really good across the bottom of the race track down there." DID THE CHANGING WEATHER AFFECT THE HANDLING OF THE CAR? "It just kept making my car better and better."

BOBBY HAMILTON, JR.-25-Team Marines Ford Taurus (Finished 19th) - "We just kept trying to adjust on the car all day and we could never get a good feeling. It really wouldn't go on stickers, it'd get too tight at the end of it or it would be too loose. They made an adjustment for me and then I got too loose in the middle of a run. It was just a terrible day." DID IT FEEL LIKE A DIFFERENT DARLINGTON WITH THE SAFER BARRIERS AND THE NEW TIRE COMPOUND? "No, it was the same thing except you've got soft tires. Whoever figures the tires out, and it's showing which group is figuring it out. You've got three extra days in the weekend on the Cup side to figure it out. Those guys will figure it out first and then it will trickle down and we'll get it together."

JASON KELLER-22-Miller High Life Ford Taurus (Finished 13th) - WAS THE GROOVE SMALLER TODAY, AND DID IT MAKE FOR TOUGHER RACING THIS WEEKEND? "It's as tough as it's ever been, but we're not running bad. We had a really good race car, but we just had a little hiccup in the pits unfortunately. We're going to fine-tune and we'll OK." DID THE SOFTER TIRES HAVE AN IMPACT TODAY? "It's going to give up quicker. Even on hard tires we used to give up pretty quick, and now naturally it is. We just didn't have a handle on it today. We had a pretty good race car with a lot of speed, we just couldn't seem to put ourselves in a position. It seemed from about fifth place to 20th everybody was running about the same speeds and it was real tough to pass." HAVE CERTAIN CUP COMPETITORS BEEN ABLE TO FIGURE OUT THE NEW TIRE COMPOUND MORE QUICKLY WITH THE ADDED PRACTICE TIME OF RUNNING BOTH SERIES? "The more races is helping them figure out the geometry and what this tire likes and the package this tire likes, not so much the more laps like today or before the race. This is our third race, if you throw out Daytona, since we've been on this new tire, and they've already had double that. I think it's just that they have more experience on this tire of what it should feel and what they need to feel back. We're not giving up. I'm not going to beat up on my guys, we had a hiccup in the pits, we're going to work on it and we're going to do better. Heck, a terrible day and we finished 13th. We had a top-five race car. We have a good race team, we just haven't shown it yet."'

ROBERT PRESSLEY-47-Clorox/Wisk Ford Taurus (Finished 21st) - HAS THE GROOVE CHANGED WITH THE SAFER BARRIERS? "I guess it has because normally you could slide right up against the wall and get that little bit of extra grip that nobody ever uses expect when the tires are wore out. Man, we could never get to it. You either had to go up and hit the wall or run on the bottom, and when you run on the bottom, it was a little bit harder on the tires. But, I love this race track and I love coming here racing. I don't know what happened because we got so doggone loose there at the end." HAVE CERTAIN CUP COMPETITORS BEEN ABLE TO FIGURE OUT THE NEW TIRE COMPOUND MORE QUICKLY WITH THE ADDED PRACTICE TIME OF RUNNING BOTH SERIES? "I don't think so. Those Cup guys are the best that they are whenever you get to the Cup level. There were a couple of guys that ran one through four, but there were a number of them that were in the back, too. I think it's just the teamwork. Whatever team gets to figuring these tires out first is going to have the advantage. One of our cars was good on the long runs and we were good on the short runs, so now we can at least go back and look at the two and come up with something."

JEFF BURTON PRESS CONFERENCE

"The SAFER walls, no one should complain that the race track is smaller because it's made the race track safer. It's kind of crazy. But, it certainly does impact the way you drive, but it impacts it for everybody. It just gives you that much more room to lose control and slide and hit the thing. Again, I think I heard David (Green) saying the same thing, it is where it is and we have to race where the wall is. It's not going to move if you hit it, so you just have to stay away from it. The guys that really get up there, Biffle, I watched him there that last run and he was right up against every single lap over in one and two, and my car wouldn't let me do that, so I had to run a little bit away from it. I kept thinking, 'Ok, the only way we're going to beat him is if he hits it.' That's' just Darlington. That's the way it's always been and that's how it is now, it's just you're a little bit lower than you used to be, but you're still right against the wall."

"I think David (Green) went through a period in his career where he didn't have a ride and he was a Busch Grand National champion. You know you can do it, but you're not doing it and you're not having success, so you keep telling yourself and you put tapes in and watch yourself, and you know you can do it. It is reassuring when you go do it, and you actually put it on the race track and you show yourself and you show everybody else you can do it. Good race car drivers don't forget how to drive. David Green didn't forget how to drive and he proved it last year and he's proving it again this year. You have to be in the right deal for you. That's not to say it's all about the team. The driver has to fit in there, too. When you are having a tough time all you can do is remind yourself that you are a good driver, but you also have to be willing to say, 'What am I doing wrong to contribute to the issues that we're having?' That's where it gets hard and you're telling yourself you're good, but you're also telling yourself that you have to do better. It's hard to know what you're not doing right. That's the hardest thing about what we do because we have to figure that out. You can't watch it on tape. You can't analyze it like you do a quarterback or a golfer or anybody else. The only person that can figure it out is us. That's the hardest part about it. When you're not doing a good job you really don't know why. Generally you're not doing a good job because your car won't let you do a good job. That's my opinion."

"I hate to sound like a spoiled brat, but the last four races we've run here and the last three I won expect for today, so I'm a little disappointed that we didn't win. Although we did run real strong, we just didn't make the right call at the end and that falls on my shoulder. I told them what to do to the car and we just didn't do the right thing. They did do the right thing, and we made our car a little worse and they made their car a little better, and they were a tenth and a half quicker than we were. As far as the early part of the race and the middle part of the race, I thought we did a good job, but at the end we didn't and that's where it goes back to just looking and figuring out what you didn't do as well. You're not going to win them all, you're not going to make the right call every time, and when you don't make the right call, you need it to hurt and it does hurt."

GREG BIFFLE PRESS CONFERENCE

"I'll tell you, the guys have been working really hard on the Charter car. Brad (Parrott) has been doing a good job organizing everything and we've been working real hard on our engines and everything. The car just handled really, really well today. It was the same car we ran at Rockingham and our car was really fast over there and we brought it here. This was actually the car that Burton won with here a couple of years ago. It was the same chassis with a different body on it. It was just a great day. We had a little trouble in the pits with lug nuts. The glue wasn't working out right for us and we lost some spots a few times, but when it counted the guys really laid one down and got us out first. I can't say enough of how proud I am of them after that last pit stop. I was probably was determined to win in the race. It's hard to pass here and you have to use up a lot of tire to make a pass. Burton's car being so strong with him out front, it might have been difficult for me to get by him. I'm really excited about having the Charter High Speed Internet and HDTV car in victory lane for the first time this year."

JACK ROUSH PRESS CONFERENCE

"I guess Greg hadn't won here before, but he's won it seems like every place else. The guys have got good notes. Brad Parrott was the crew chief today and he was the crew chief for Jeff Burton here, and it seemed like he had very good luck. It seemed like Jeff could win anywhere he went the year before last when they were together. There's a lot of history in the Ford Busch team that Roush runs out of Mooresville and they had a good combination today with both guys being up front. One thing I want to say, I've got some sadness in my family. I lost my father on Tuesday of this week, so the Roush family has a big hole in it right now. To all of the folks in Adams County, Ohio, this is for you guys."

(BIFFLE CONTINUED) COMMENT ON THE SAFER BARRIERS. "The race track races extremely different. It's changed the whole complexity of the race track. It seems to be more of a factor down here in three and four than it is in one and two. The car wants to be just a little bit free into this corner; both of my cars do, the NEXTEL Cup car and the Busch car. You don't have that extra room any more to just let the car roll into the corner and then just ease the gas back down. I kinda got a rhythm there at the end of the race. I starting trying to use the high line again to see if it was working and it started to work for me then, but when I tried it earlier, I couldn't get it to work. You have to be really, really careful. I got in there a few times and I wasn't sure if I was going to get it slowed down enough. You can't step on the brakes because it's going to slide the nose and the back is coming out a bit. It's really hard, but what it's done, it's made it really hard to pass. Kyle Busch got into some trouble down there in turn one with a lapped car just because when they slow down and go into the corner the natural thing is to slide up the track, but there's no more room to go around the top of them. They make it so narrow when they do give you a lane, you're not sure there is enough room or if they're going to come up even more. It's really, really hard when guys aren't having a good day and are a little bit off the pace. That's where it seems a little bit more treacherous is that particular spot. You can't enter that corner without getting down there and getting a little bit of room to run up on the race track. It's changed the track a bunch and it's really slick. A lot of marbles build up right next to that wall for some reason. You can't get within six inches of it or it will suck you in in a second. The concrete didn't seem like it was that way, so I'm not sure if something is coming out from underneath the wall, all of the rubber behind it and sliding underneath it. Or maybe it's bouncing off of it differently. This place is not easy no matter what you do, but it is a fun race track."

EVALUATE RUNNING BOTH SERIES SO FAR THIS SEASON. "Well, last week I was wandering a round the motorhome lot trying to figure out what to do with myself because I didn't have the Busch car there to work on. This race here will probably help me more than anywhere this season, running 150 laps here today. Getting used to this race track and where to pass ands where people got into trouble today, I like it. I've had a lot of fun so far. Some of the notes have transferred over like today. A lot of things have helped from our Cup car over to our Busch car. I enjoy it. Sometimes it is a little hectic because I can't spend quite as much time as I want to with the crew chiefs, but I've worked out coming into the garage earlier in the morning and using some more of my time in between talking with them, and now we'll go and talk with Doug (Richert) tonight and make sure we have everything lined up for tomorrow. Just some things we have to work around."

HOW BIG IS THE ADVANTAGE OF RUNNING BOTH SERIES? "It seems this year at Rockingham and Vegas, not so much at Vegas because I wasn't real good there, it seems like my experience and my ability to run good on Saturday has been increased. I feel more confident that I can win on Saturdays a little bit more right now. Our cars are pretty good, but it's not going to be that way everywhere. These teams, there are some teams that are going to be really tough. That's the 8, the 25, the 37; those guys are going to be tough later on when we get to Kansas, Chicago, Texas, more like Las Vegas. Those guys are going to be tough. Hopefully I get a little head start on them. I was just talking with Jack, we might have won Rockingham if we didn't have a little bit of engine trouble there. That'd be neat to have two wins in the bag already, but you can only kinda think about that."

TALK ABOUT YOUR COMMUNICATION WITH YOUR CREW CHIEF TODAY. "The decision to make in the pits on the last stop was how many laps we had to go. Once I figured out we only had 45 laps to go when we went back to green, it was a no-brainer for me. Then I asked how many cars were on the lead lap, and there were 30. That's a lot of cars to have on the lead lap here. I couldn't take that chance. Think about it, there were no more cautions either. We would have been doomed if we hadn't stop. We would have been done. I think Nemechek experienced that and thought he would stay out. If there was a caution, if you could have predicted it, 15 laps in you might have a chance with fresh tires, but not starting 30th. I had to do what everybody was going to do. That kinda worked its way out and it became a non-issue that we had to stop. Brad and I communicated really well this whole weekend. We have the whole time, but we're going through some stuff. We have a whole new group of guys and any time you start with a brand-new team or a brand-new group of guys that have never worked together, we're going to have little, small issues on who's doing what and how we're working stuff out. We're getting better and better every week and that's what it's about, building character and this win will do a lot for us going forward. Exceptional this weekend."

(ROUSH CONTINUED) WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE SAFER BARRIERS? "The first thing that I'll say is that I'm thrilled that ISC has put the walls in here and I look forward to having the walls every place that we go. Given the fact that the drivers run up close to the wall here, normally it's not one of the places that you'd think has the greatest likelihood to hurt a driver by the way he'd have a head-on impact into the wall. I wouldn't have picked Darlington as one of the first tracks that I would want to see it put into, but I'm glad that they have and I' looking forward to seeing them everywhere."

WILL THE NEW TIRE PACKAGE TAKE THE PRESSURE OFF OF THE ENGINE BUILDERS? "I've participated in the building of engines it seems like for 40 years now and the pressure has been on for 100 percent of the time. With the new softer tire, if an engine is a little better it will certainly show up in the potential to qualify and for the time when a driver makes his decision that it's time to go. There is some much life in the tire, and the more engine you have the more you will be able to get out of it. You can say that if you had an incredibly powerful engine and you used it incorrectly, you could go off the tires faster than you could with a soft engine; that's possible. But, all off the drivers are going to want as much power as they can possibly have all of the time and then feel like they have the power within themselves to decide when they race hard and when they save their tires."

(BIFFLE CONTINUED) WILL THE NEW TIRE PACKAGE TAKE THE PRESSURE OFF OF THE ENGINE BUILDERS? "It's almost backwards the way you're thinking. If you had a really, really hard tire that didn't have as much grip, then you almost can't use as much power because it will slip that tire. Yeah, when the tire wears out you have to be easier on the throttle, but when you get the thing going straight down the straightaway you can use all of the power you can have. Prior to that, then the power really shows up like Atlanta and every place else where the tire is soft for 10 laps and you can really use the throttle a lot. The guy with a lot of power is going to make a difference. It really hasn't changed what we're doing at all."

(ROUSH CONTINUED) YOU HAVE 13 VICTORIES HERE. WHAT IS THE EDGE THAT YOU HAVE HERE? "It's the guys standing behind me here and the guys standing behind Greg and loading their car up and doing the inspection right now. We have great people that have been with us a long time. We have young drivers that have come in with great potential like Greg and Mark Martin a few years ago, and Jeff Burton, and, of course, now Kurt Busch and Matt Kenseth. We've had just a continuum of people that were incredibly talented that have brought their energies and their potentials and they have basked in the sunshine that the folks that they were sharing space with brought and the ones that preceded them. One of the things that we have in our group, looking at the NEXTEL Cup thing, we have a meeting after Happy Hour and sit down and Mark Martin and Jeff Burton hold court. They tell guys, first of all everybody is anxious to see what they think about what's going on and how the race is going to develop. The younger fellas with their perspective, they chime in and they say, 'My car is doing this and I found this out and I didn't know that, but I did this other thing and it looks like it going to work.' Anyway, there is great harmony and great chemistry within the group and I just ride along with. I'm just proud to be a part of it. In fact, yesterday I wasn't here for the family business, and, of course, they come out and finish one and two today, and they pretty much told me they don't need me."