Meijer 300 presented by Oreo - Ford Post-Race Quotes

CARL EDWARDS-60-Charter Communications Ford Taurus (Finished 1st) - TALK ABOUT THE DECISION TO PIT. "That was my fault. I said, 'We're sitting here leading and if we don't come and they come then they're going to beat us.' I said, 'If we do come and they come, we'll win, and if we do come and they don't come, we'll win.' You know what, that problem matrix means we should come down and pit. I just did not know that Martin Truex was so fast. We would not have caught him if it weren't for that last caution. And then he pulled out every trick he could. He waited on the start, faked me in one and then ran me down the track on the back straightaway. He did everything he could; he's an awesome competitor. It was fun." YOU DOMINATED THE RACE TONIGHT. WAS IT CAR OR DRIVER? "I'll tell you what, it's my car. It's Darrell Marrow and Ryan McKinney and Brad Parrott going out and working on this car all week. They did come stuff this week that we haven't done all year and I have a feeling it's going to help us positively for the rest of the season. Our Charter Ford is definitely better than it has been and I look for it to even getting it better. All of those notes that Brad has are paying off. We're making some headway with this car. It's definitely the car I would think." YOU'VE NOW WON HERE IN A BUSCH CAR AND A TRUCK. "In Kentucky, every time I come through the gates here it's just the coolest feeling in the world. The biggest day of my life was to win that race in that truck. And it said a lot. That meant a lot. So to get my first victory here, and to come back here and win another one, this place is so cool. Everybody here is so cool. The track is fun."

GREG BIFFLE-66-Duraflame Quick Coals Ford Taurus - YOU TOOK A HARD HIT INTO THE SAFER BARRIER. ARE YOU OK, AND WHAT HAPPENED? "My right foot is pretty messed up. The 38 wrecked us there to start with. Somebody was jacking us on the start and a bunch of lapped cars got by me on the outside there coming to the start, so that got me behind anyway, and I had to pass them all back and that gave Carl a huge jump. We were going to be all right, I just needed to get there."

JON WOOD-47-Clorox/Wisk Ford Taurus - "I don't know what happened on one of those restarts, but a lapped car got into me and knocked me into the fence. We did have an awesome car. We struggled a little bit in the pits early on, but we made up for it later in the race. We came in here with a top-10 car and it definitely in the end was not a top-10 car. We were just in the right place at the right time. It's exciting, to first off, run with these overly funded race teams and we're running neck and neck with them and faster than most of them. Overall it was an OK night."

STACY COMPTON-59-Kingsford/Bush's Baked Beans Ford Taurus - "These guys, every week they just dig in harder and harder. We had a good race car. I can't believe they didn't black flag some of those guys on that restart. It sort of put us behind the 8-ball that second-from-the-last restart, and on the last restart I said, 'Oh well, if they're going to do it then I'm going to do it and we got a good restart.' We had a good race car and the guys made some good calls all night. We needed this. We've tested and tested and tested the last three weeks and Chris (Rice, crew chief) and I have figured some things out together and we're getting better. We've had such a bad year as far as luck is concerned that this is the beginning of our season. We're ready to go now. We stuck to our plan. Our tires looked great. Our car was good all night. We got a little tight when the sun went down, but other than that, we had a good race car all night. Our tires looked great. We ran 70 laps in practice on a set of tires. Our tires never wore out and I was pretty impressed with them."

KENNY WALLACE-22-Stacker 2 Ford Taurus - "I'm embarrassed at myself that I had the car set up like that. I missed it on the shocks. I missed it on the setup and then I made it worse by speeding down pit road. I just did a bad job tonight and that's all there is to it."

JASON KELLER-35-McDonald's Ford Taurus - WHAT PUT YOU BEHIND THE WALL? "I really don't know. Apparently something in the rear end or the axel broke. We finally got the McDonald's Ford running a little bit better and we worked our way back in the top 10. Luck wasn't on our side tonight, but we'll just try hard to get back out there and get as many points as we can."

CARL EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE

"I did not know until they dropped the green flag that our car was going to be that dominant. In practice we were really good, but the car was just awesome. We had enough pit stops, though, that Greg Biffle, Martin Truex, Reed Sorenson and those guys got to work on their cars and they got a little bit faster. I did not know."

"I'm really glad that we had four tires because I think on even tires it would have been close. I think if we would have stayed out, I guess we would have been OK because I feel that we were pretty fast. We had four tires and we were not going to catch Martin - he was too fast - if we didn't get that last caution. I'll tell you what, on that second-to-last restart, Clint and Reed were both really gracious and didn't race me too hard. I got up behind Martin, and to be honest with you, I think if we didn't get that last caution I would have been able to get by Martin pretty easily just because we have new tires. I was a little worried doing a two-lap sprint because I know how good Martin is and how hard he will drive. The last two laps, they threw the green and Martin didn't go. He was trying to wait and change us his restart and I just stood on the throttle and expected him to go. I didn't actually see the green flag, but my spotter Jason Hedlesky was calling the green flag because I couldn't see it against the crowd very well. He said, 'Green, green, green,' and I was like, 'Sorry Martin, I'm going to go.' Anyway we drove down into the corner and Martin did a great job of making his car go as fast as mine with tires, but I just got a little better run off of the second corner and got next to him, and he graciously didn't run into me or do anything crazy and just raced me really clean. Martin is a great driver and it's neat to be able to beat him like that."

"It did change just a little bit. We were a little bit tight and as it got cooler our car freed up and we tightened it up just a little bit more. We made changes. Brad Parrott does a great job with air pressure and matching the tires and everything like that, and I feel like our car stayed pretty good all day, but we did make little changes to kinda accommodate the track changes."

"All of the calls are generally by committee. I was the one who said, 'Let's pit.' I felt like we were leading and I felt like if it went green and most of the guys pitted behind us. I knew Biffle would pit, and I felt like if they pitted that we would not win the race; I felt like they would be able to beat us. I felt like if we pitted, my crew I have enough faith in them, if everybody came, we would come out first and we would still be great and win the race. And I felt like if we're the only ones to pit and we come out 15th, I still felt good enough about the car with tires that I felt like we could win. The only option was to pit in my mind. It definitely was not the best option if there weren't any cautions; Martin would have won the race."

"He (Parrott) said, 'That's fine.' He went with it and we came out ninth and could only work our way up to fourth o fifth under green. I was not going to be able to catch Martin. It was not a good decision without a caution."

"I just like Kentucky Speedway; it's a lot of fun. It's a neat race track because it's a tri-oval, a one-and-a-half-mile race track, but it has its own characteristics and it has bumps and different banking in corners and different radii. It's a driver's race track because you can move around."

"I owe a lot to Greg Biffle and Rusty Wallace both for the travel arrangements. They helped me a ton today, and if it wasn't for that I wouldn't have been able to do this. I have to thank Greg Biffle for that. I wouldn't wish a caution on anyone. I would have rather finished fourth than to see Greg wad it up in a wall like that; it's kind of scary. Greg did a great job with Brad Parrott last year building this team. I stepped into a team that's a championship-winning team and it's just my job to drive at that level."

"Not guilty, but like that's dumb. That's how racing goes. You can second-guess yourself and go back and just destroy yourself thinking about decisions you shouldn't have made or should have made. My father was the one who helped me with that early on because I'm really hard on myself. He said, 'Look. All you can do is use your best judgment and make a decision and forget about it.' That's all you can do and that's my attitude in situations like that."

"I'm pretty good, but I just need to go home and sleep right now. Really, I'm good. I feel great. If these races were 1000 miles, we'd race 1000 miles every weekend. It doesn't matter to me. I'm ready to race."

"My crew just had a little bit of a slow pit stop, and Brad motivated them a little bit on the radio and they got it together. It was pretty funny actually. Brad is not a mean guy and he said some mean things and then he apologized, and it was kind of funny and we made fun of him over it."

"I just stood up, and to be honest with you, I've been having bad problems with my back cramping during the race. We had the pedals too far away from the seat, so I was extending my foot the whole race to get wide-open throttle. I could hardly get wide-open throttle, so I was having a lot of trouble with my back being cramped up. I just got out of the car and was goofy feeling and fell off. It doesn't how I crash that back flip, one way or the other I'm going to get back up and do it right. It's just fun and I'm having a good time."