Aaron's 312 - Ford Post-Race Quotes

MATT KENSETH-17-Waste Management Ford Taurus (Finished 4th) - "We got an OK finish out of it, but it was a struggle all day. I just couldn't get it to do anything I wanted it to do. The engine program definitely improved and that was better, we just have to work on our cars and get them out of the corner quicker. I just couldn't get it to do the same thing all day, so it was kind of a struggle." YOU AND DAVID GREEN MADE CONTACT ON A RESTART. WHAT HAPPENED? "That was just my fault. We were on new tires and we were coming pretty fast and Carl hit me pretty hard in the middle of the backstretch and pushed me. I had so much momentum coming off four, I was going to go under him and he went under the car in front of him, and I don't know if there was right up there on me pushing me or not, but it felt like there was and I tried getting off the gas and we just barely touched, but it doesn't take much."

DAVID GREEN-27-Kleenex Ford Taurus (Finished 33rd) - WHAT HAPPENED ON THE RESTART WITH KENSETH? "I got run over I guess. I haven't seen it yet. Kenseth took off on the restart and we had old tires like most everybody did, and I was underneath Jason Keller there and the next thing I knew, I was just passing him and I got turned sideways. At that point I just tried to keep it where I didn't hit nothing, but I guess I ran out of room." DID YOU MAKE CONTACT WITH THE SAFER BARRIER? "I think I hit where there wasn't one, but I thought I was going to stay off the wall, but I guess I ran out or talent. It just aggravates me and I probably shouldn't say anything else. Who it is and why it is, he's not the kind of guy that does that. It's a shame to have a good car and have it tore all to pieces."

STACY COMPTON-59-Kingsford/Bush's Beans Ford Taurus (Finished 41st) - WHAT PUT YOU BEHIND THE WALL? "The motor blew up. It's just the way the season has been so far. I'm telling you, I don't know what's going on. It's pretty frustrating. We need to turn this luck around; I know that. It sure is aggravating. We've had good race cars all year and we haven't been able to prove it." WITH THIS BEING THE FIFTH RACE OF THE SEASON, DOES THE TEAM'S MENTALITY SHIFT NEXT WEEK WHEN THIS YEAR'S POINTS START BEING USED FOR PROVISIONALS? "It doesn't for us. We're going to be out of the top 30 in points. You just can't drop out of races and we keep dropping out of races, so we're going to be in a pretty bad position next week. Unfortunately, we've got ourselves in a hole and we've got a lot of work to do."

ASHTON LEWIS, JR.-25-Marines Ford Taurus (Finished 14th) - "We just didn't have the car that I thought we had in practice yesterday. Even after qualifying I thought we had a really good car, and once we started the race we just never felt like we got into the race track. I think we got lucky to get the Lucky Dog, but Charlie did a really good job of holding on to that set of tires there at the end. I thought it was going to end up costing us, but it was good. It might have been a little bit lucky, but we'll take that to climb all the way back up." WE'VE BEEN TO DAYTONA, CALIFORNIA, LAS VEGAS AND NOW ATLANTA. DO YOU FEEL THAT YOU HAVE A GOOD HANDLE ON THE SUPERSPEEDWAYS? "I think we're close. I told them yesterday that car was the best car that I have ever had here, but then when we went to racing it just doesn't seem like I can race these type of setups as well as I need to. I think that's the only area we kind of need to work is maybe getting a little more comfortable in traffic, and once we do that we'll be really good."

KENNY WALLACE-22-Stacker 2 Ford Taurus (Finished 12th) - "I thought we were going to have us a good top-10 and then we put on a set of tires that I don't know what the deal was with them. From yesterday, we only had 10 laps on them and it's become a tire game now. We got beat there with five or six cars that put on stickers. We put on a set of tires that had seven laps on them, and I couldn't run 20th. We came in and put on another set of tires that had 20 laps on them and got back up to 12th. All in all, we're still tuning on this thing. I'm pushing still, so we'll be better next week." HOW MUCH INPUT DOES THE DRIVER HAVE WHEN IT COMES TO RACE STRATEGY? "I had a lot to with it. It's so hard when you see 99 percent of the field come down on lap 100 and put on their last set of tires and you stay out there. If you have a good enough car and you don't think you're going to get lapped, you can stay out, but the scenario just fell perfectly. The 60 car just got lucky enough where he was fast enough. You look at all of those guys that made their charge with 20 laps to go with a set of stickers, that's going to happen a lot this year. We all have to do a good job of tire management."

JASON KELLER-35-McDonald's Ford Taurus (Finished 17th) - "We were kind of sitting ducks there at the end. We had already committed to our last set of tires. We got all we could get. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't where we wanted to perform, but I feel we got everything we could possibly get out of the race car. Days like today, that's all you can do." TIRE STRATEGY WAS PARAMOUNT TODAY? "That new tire rule that only gives us X amount of sets per weekend is really coming into play. We had already played our hand there at the end and we were going to go all the way and battle it to the end. They had that caution or we would have been sitting pretty. You have to decide how you're going to play it and commit to it. We were just off. We were a little tight and a little loose, but we could never get it. I feel good knowing we got all that we could possibly get."

CARL EDWARDS-60-Charter Communications Ford Taurus (Finished 1st) - "This is unbelievable. I have to thank a lot of people. This is the biggest win of my career; my first Busch win. I have to thank Charter, first of all, and Roush Racing, Jack Roush, Brad Parrott and the whole crew. Everyone back home was watching - Mike Mittler and Timmy Kohuth and all of the guys that have helped me. This is awesome to win from the pole and to come out here and race with guys like Tony Stewart and Jimmie. They're unbelievable, and this is the biggest win of my career." ANY FLASHBACKS TO LAST WEEK DURING THE FINAL LAPS? "Man, I did. I don't know of you noticed there at the end, but Tony, there were a couple of laps where he was just closing in, so I was diving into three and I felt like the right-front was going down. I guess the groove was just changing, so I was like, 'Oh man, not again.' The Goodyears held up really well, and I just changed the line a little bit and we were able to hold them off. Man, those guys are good. Tony and Jimmie, I know they were having fun. Jimmie got by me once and he gave me a thumbs up out the window." YOU ROLLED THE DICE WITH TIRE STRATEGY AND IT WORKED. "I was sweating it. I saw it was towards the end and Brad Parrott said we were going to get a caution at 174 or something and it happened. Brad Parrott is an amazing crew chief. We had Bob Osborne on the box for this, but I can't say enough to the fans. That was so cool when we took the lead. I saw people cheering and that means a lot to me. This is a great win for Charter, and this is the biggest win in my career." DID YOU THINK YOU BE ABLE TO GET BACK UP FRONT? "I was really excited about it. It felt like a truck race here. There were all of these different tire strategies and we had the best tires. Brad made the adjustments and made the car perfect." YOU NOW LEAD THE POINTS AS WELL. "Championship or not, these races are fun, and we're here to win races and this was a good one." HOW WORRIED WERE YOU THAT YOU WOULDN'T COMPLETE THE BACK FLIP? "I haven't done one of those in a while, so I was a little concerned, but I'll tell you if I have to fall down I'd rather do it here in victory lane than anywhere else."

MICHEL JOURDAIN, JR.-10-ppc Racing Ford Taurus (Finished 10th) - "I think we were fast all day and that's what got us up there. At the end, the guys that passed us had new tires. Other than them, we were running pretty good so I'm very happy and I think it was a fantastic day." YOU WERE ABLE TO STAY UP FRONT MOST OF THE DAY. "At the start, J.J. spun the tires and the inside just went, so we lost all of those poisons there and had to get them back." YOU FOLLOWED IN THE TRACKS OF YOUR TEAMMATE KENNY WALLACE FOR A LONG TIME TODAY. HOW MUCH DID HE HELP YOU? "We ran together for a long time. I think he got me on one pit stop and then I got him on the last one. He passed me and then I passed him. We ran for a long time together, which was pretty cool to run with my teammate and a friend. Almost all of the guys that I was running against were Cup guys, so it was pretty good. All of those guys at the end that passed me had new tires, and at the end I was one of the best Fords running." IS THE PRESSURE OFF NOW THAT YOU'RE IN THE TOP 30 IN POINTS AND ARE GUARANTEED A STARTING SPOT IN THE NEXT RACE? "That was the best thing that has happened all year. There is a lot of pressure every weekend to make the race, so I'm very happy that we've got that and to finish good. We ran strong all day and passed cars and running for position. I think it's just fantastic. The guys gave me a great car."

GREG BIFFLE-66-Subway Ford Taurus (Finished 6th) - "We just ran out of laps. It was kind of a bold call that we made, and it was obviously the right call. First and second place was tires. I'll tell you, the Subway/Duraflame car, the guys did a good job, but I just got too far back there in the traffic and I couldn't get back up through there. It's kind of unfortunate. I think I had a chance to give those guys a run for their money at the front, but I just couldn't get it done." IS THERE MORE STRATEGY IN A BUSCH RACE THAN A CUP RACE? "Yeah, there is because you only have those four sets of tires. When do you stay out and when do you pit? There is just so much to it, and it's two weeks in a row that we've done this, and it's a hard call to make, and sometimes it's the right call and sometimes it isn't. Sometimes you run out of time like we did today."

CARL EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE

"I just want to say thanks to Charter and Jack Roush for believing in me and giving me this opportunity. All of these Charter cars are awesome. I'm just really glad to drive them, and to have Brad Parrott and Bob Osborne both up on the box today, I think that really helped us a lot. Racing against Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart and Greg Biffle and those guys is amazing, and if it wasn't for our pit strategy I think we would have had a little bit harder time with them, but everything worked out perfectly for us."

TALK ABOUT THE MOVE YOU MADE ON JIMMIE JOHNSON FOR THE LEAD ON LAP 192. "To be honest with you, I was just concentrating pretty hard and don't remember that exactly. What I do remember is when Tony, Jimmie and I were racing really hard earlier in the race, I think around lap 120 or something like that. When Jimmie finally got by me, he had the bottom lane and I thought I would just give it to him because it's early enough. He gave me the thumb's up out of the window like, 'Yeah, we're having a blast.' I thought, 'Man, this is pretty fun.' If you just take all of the points and all of the money out of it, it's just a blast to race with those guys. Jimmie and Tony are just so good at what they do; it's really neat. There at the end, we just had better tires, and it really made our car look good and me look good, but those fresh Goodyears are really what made that thing go at the end. That's how we got by all of those guys."

TALK ABOUT YOUR BACK FLIP TECHNIQUE. "That was a little bit of an untested maneuver there. I haven't practiced that ever off of a car really, so I just thought I'd give it a shot and it worked out. It's easy to do compared to racing. The back flips are easy. The winning is the hard part."

BRAD PARROTT PRESS CONFERENCE

DOES IT MAKE YOUR HEART STOP WHEN HE DOES HIS BACK FLIPS? "He makes my heart stop, and he made my heart stop when he did that move in turn two. He made my heart stop when he said he was going to stay on race track when I told him to pit. But, Greg Biffle used to do the same thing to me. It takes a whole bunch of guys back at Roush Racing in Mooresville to make our job easier. Without those guys, and the things they do to these race cars back at the shop to make our race cars fast, I can't thank the motor room enough for the horsepower they gave us today. This guy is a Raybestsos rookie challenger this year and he sure isn't looking like it right now."

(EDWARDS CONTINUED) WERE YOU THINKING AT ALL ABOUT LAST WEEK IN THE CLOSING LAPS? "I did think about that a little bit. I thought about that right there at the end. Everything was going great. Brad and the guys made really good adjustments and I felt like we could hold Tony off, and then all of a sudden the line I was using into turn three just gave up. I don't know if there was a little bit of fluid down or my tires were just giving up, but it just wouldn't turn. It was like a switch and I thought, 'Man, we've got a right-front tire going down.' That really made my heart pound and I changed my line a little bit and everything was fine. I was definitely was thinking about that just a little bit and that sacred me."

DID MARK MARTIN GIVE YOU ANY POINTERS ABOUT THIS TRACK FOR THIS RACE? "No particular pointers. The biggest thing I want to thank Mark Martin for is not showing up to race his Busch car here. That's a big deal. Mark is unbelievable and whenever I have a question I can go ask him. At Vegas last week, the biggest thing Mark helped me with was just being able to follow him for a little bit and learn from him. The guy has so much experience and he is so precise the way he drives that he helps me in a lot of ways. But, nothing really particular for this track on this day."

(PARROTT CONTINUED) "Thanks to NASCAR for giving us the six set tire rule. It's a little different from our strategies last year where we were allowed to pit three times. We pay a lot of money for those Goodyear Eagles, and you mind as well save them till whenever you need them to get the most money back out of them. Carl made the call. He saw Tony Stewart stay out. Jimmie Johnson, I guess, was the first one to hit pit road, and he saw Tony stay out and why follow Jimmie Johnson, the guy that's won all of these races in Charlotte and Atlanta? Why not follow Tony Stewart, who he knocked out of the way in Daytona through the dirt? Like I said, the tires are very important and at Fontana all of the crew chiefs set their tone by practicing on one set of tires, which is very hard to set a race car up on a given day on one set or tires when you're used to setting them up on two and three sets. It's definitely thrown the ball back on my hands and the car chief's hands to make the car handle better. But, we are running more laps on them, so I'm just glad we had those Goodyear Eagles again."

(EDWARDS CONTINUED) "On that note, Jack did call on the Nextel and said he was not happy with our tire strategy and he'd have a conversation with us about that. He said that's not how you win championship, but he was happy that we won. He said that was too big of a gamble and he didn't like that. I'm going to take the heat for that. I told him it was me and not you."

(PARROTT CONTINUED) "I know. I was on the pit box with him and saw his eyes. It was Carl Edwards, once again, that made this call. We were down to three laps (before we had to pit) and the caution came out. I'm sure his heart stopped and my heart stopped. But, that was the call that we made and that's the call we're going to stand by and we wouldn't be sitting here right now if we had to pit under green. That's the call we stood by, and that's the lessons we learned, and for some reason we taught everybody another lesson -- don't come get your tires until the end of the race."