O'Reilly Challenge - Ford Post-Race Quotes

DAVID GREEN—27—Kleenex Ford Taurus (Finished 15th) – “At the beginning I couldn’t have asked for it to be any better, and I think we drove to about eighth or so. We had that green-flag stop and we lost a ton of time to the leader. The car wasn’t real bad right then, but when we did our first stop we put some scuffs on and it just killed it. I had no grip on either end of the car. On the last stop there, we were the Lucky Dog and the last stop we put some stickers on it, but it was still like it had gremlins in it. The first part of the race, I couldn’t ask for it to be any better, and everything was good, but that old saying, ‘you get stuck back in that dirty air.’ Man, I was in it and it was terrible back through there. It was a decent day and we didn’t tear up anything, and we’ll take her to Homestead and see what happens.” WHEN THE CUP DRIVERS RACE IN THE BUSCH RACES, DO YOU FEEL THAT THEY SPEED UP THE PACE OF THE RACE SINCE THEY HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE? “Yes and no. To me, they just grab all of the money quicker. It’s not fair and I’ve been politically correct all of these years, and it’s about come to a head. What’s going to happen next year, it’s going to get 10 times worse. Every one of them will be over here running and they need to make a limit. If however many of them want to come, let them come, but they’ll have to fight over five positions or 10. Put those feasts five in the race and go from there. You’ve got the best of the best over here. The pit crews come over here and help, and the crew chiefs come over and help, and it’s just tough for teams like us. But, we keep digging. It’s just takes the money quicker, I think, and the points quicker.”

MATT KENSETH—9—Pennzoil Ford Taurus (Finished 6th) – “We practiced really good and didn’t really qualify that well and didn’t race that well. We got a decent finish out of it, I guess. It really didn’t run like I expected it to run.” DO YOU EXPECT ANYTHING FROM TODAY TO CARRY OVER TO TOMORROW’S CUP RACE? “I hope not. My car was pretty good in Cup practice today when it was sunny out, and my Busch car just never really ran that good. It’s tougher and tougher for stuff to carry over, even though this weekend isn’t an impound race, but with that stuff and the spoiler being different, and the camber rule there, it’s a bunch of things that are kind of getting different, doss it’s a little bit tougher to carry some of that over.”

GREG BIFFLE—66—Duraflame Ford Taurus (Finished 2nd) – “It wasn’t a bad run. I didn’t have a very quick car and struggled all day. It was a tough race. That’s just the way it and we need to do a little bit better homework now and work a little harder on the Duraflame car, and we’ll be better next time.”

CARL EDWARDS—60—Charter Communications Ford Taurus (Finished 3rd) – “I didn’t even know if we had a third-place car, so I’m pretty proud of that finish. The Charter Ford was really good, we just never got ahead of it. It was always tight, tight, tight, and at the end we made a big adjustment. I told them, ‘Did you turn that thing in the right direction?’ It was tighter, so I don’t know what happened there. Congratulations to Kevin Harvick. After everything that they’ve been through it’s awesome to see them get a win.”

JASON KELLER—35—McDonald’s Big Mac Ford Taurus (Finished 13th) – “We had a legitimate shot at a top-10 finish, and that’s all you can ask for. If we can have a shot at the top 10 we’ll get our share, but if we’re running 25th every week we won’t. It was a good, steady day for us.” WERE YOU SURPRISED WITH THE WAY THAT THE RACE PLAYED OUT? “I was surprised the 39 stayed out because we had such long green-flag runs. It was a good steady for us. We lost track position there on that last deal, but it was a fun race car to drive; we passed a lot of fast race cars.” STARTING FROM THE 40TH POSITION, DID YOU NEED TO RACE TO HAVE LONG GREEN-FLAG RUNS? “Most definitely. Our car wouldn’t go the first 10 to 15 laps of a run. We struggled big time, so we needed long runs. There at the end we were a sixth or seventh-place race car, but unfortunately track position hurt us.”

GREG BIFFLE PRESS CONFERENCE
TALK ABOUT YOUR DAY. “It wasn’t too bad. It was unfortunate, we had a bad pit stop there at the end and it cost us, maybe the win. We came in with about a 10-carlength lead on pit road and went out third. That was a pretty tough deal there for us. Overall, it was a great day. I didn’t have the fastest car, by all means, and felt like maybe we had the third-fastest car. Kasey was a little better than us and Ryan, and Kevin jumped up there with a great pit stop and got out in clean air and did a good job. His car was really fast out front, and he did what he needed to do. Overall, it was a good day for the Duraflame car. I’m kind of happy to see Kevin win out here. He lost his father-in-law this week, so it was a big week for him and a big weekend, and I hope that will ease pain a little bit, wining the race.”

WERE YOU SURPRISED BY THE PIT STRATEGY OF THE NO. 39 CAR? “Actually, it was the other way around. We thought that he had kind of buried us a little bit there to have an extra set of tires with 20 laps to go or something. With not a lot of cars on the lead lap, it certainly could have been the case, but when nobody stayed out, and normally you have to remember that Busch races don’t run caution-free, green-flag fuel stops. That’s pretty rare for the Busch Series. Usually somebody makes a mistake or somebody doesn’t have the camber quite right and blows a tire out or something. I thought that he would be OK. I’d never thought that he’d get run out of gas like he did. It’s just the way it is.”

YOU FINISHED TO SECOND TO NEWMAN A NUMBER OF TIMES. IS THERE A DIFFERENT FEELING FINISHING SECOND TO SOMEONE ELSE, AND IS IT GOOD FOR THE SERIES THAT SOMEBODY DOESN’T COME IN AND WIN SIX STRAIGHT RACES? “Hat’s off to the Penske team. They’ve done their homework and they’ve got the race cars running very, very good. I never once saw that car wiggle. Not wiggle move or anything, and I’m driving my car sideways down into the corner sparking and dragging. I was doing everything I could to do, and his car, he can go in the corner and turn to the right and then turn back to the left again and go around stuff. I’ve never in my life seen a car go like that. Yeah, probably for the series it’s good that Kevin won and somebody else besides the 39, but you can’t take the facts away that he obviously was very, very dominant and had the car to beat today again.”

DID YOU THINK YOU HAD ANYTHING FOR KASEY KAHNE HAD HE NOT HAD HIS PROBLEMS? “On the short run I didn’t, but I was very surprised that I ran him down from three-quarters of a straightaway. I caught him in about 12 laps and passed him; I was in front of him when he blew his tire out. Could I have stayed in front of him? We had, I don’t know how many more laps to go, and I was putting distance on him pretty fast. If it went green the rest of the way, maybe, but if it would have went green the 39 would have won because he had already pitted. I couldn’t have beat Kasey on a shorter run. On a 40-lap run, I just wasn’t that good. I had to start my car so loose and then it went so tight that I couldn’t ever get a balance on it.”

DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING TODAY TO HELP YOU TOMORROW? “Not really. These cars drive so different, and the aero package is so different with the way that they drive and the way you drive them. You kind of sling them down into the corner. We learned a little bit about the race track, but I don’t know if we could have really applied a bunch to tomorrow.”

DID YOU HAVE SLOW PIT STOP OR DID KEVIN AND CARL’S TEAMS JUST HAVE GOOD ONES? “That I do not know, but another factor is that I had about a 10-carlength lead on the 21 as well. I had 10 carlengths and there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to come out leading because the 21 was 10 carlengths behind me on pit road and we were coming down pit road that way because the lapped cars held him back so far. He was at a huge disadvantage. I’m still blown away about getting beat out of the pits by two guys having a 10-carlength lead. It’d been different if he’d been on my bumper and we peeled off at the same time. If there had been a bunch of cars on my bumper we would have been 15th for sure. I’ll have to go back and watch the tape. Of course, they could have dropped a lug nut, the jack could have hung up, the air gun was going the wrong way; I don’t know what happened. These Brewco guys work really, really hard. I have to give them credit. They work very hard and you won’t find anybody in racing like them giving 120 percent every time they step into the shop or the race track. Part of that is nervousness and tying hard and trying to be as fast as you can, but all season our pit stops have been off a little bit from the other guys. We’ve just overcome it a lot of times, but today it kind of hurt us a little bit

CARL EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE
TALK ABOUT YOUR DAY. “Our Charter Ford was pretty good. I didn’t think we were as good as third place, so to be honest with you I’m pretty excited to have finished third. There at the end, we made what we thought was a pretty big adjustment. We were just so tight and the track got so slick. Early we could turn and go pretty well, and late we were just so tight. We thought we made a big adjustment and it was not big enough. Like Greg said, I’m glad to see Kevin get the win. I’m glad to finish third. I thought Biffle might have a run at him. I was cheering for him, but it just wasn’t meant to be.”

IS IT GOOD FOR THE SERIES THAT SOMEBODY DOESN’T COME IN AND WIN SIX STRAIGHT RACES “I concur with Greg, other than the fact that I never got close enough to see his car that well. I just have to go with what Greg said. They have a great car and they have a great team, and they work very well. Obviously, like grog said, they’ve done all their homework and built cars that can get a lot of grip on a race track. That’s the bottom line, so I think that it definitely makes the rest of us work a little bit harder, but that’s fine because that’s what racing is about. It’s about competition and if they can go do a better job and come out here and beat us, that’s their job and hat’s off to them.”

“I felt like I learned a lot about the race track. It does apply differently. We have a total different package underneath our Cup car. Like Greg said, you drive them so differently. I think it’s going to be a fun race tomorrow. I learned how slick the race track is going to get. When the sun was out, and a long-green flag run, it was slippery to me, so I think it should be pretty fun. It will be a lot of driving tomorrow. It’s going to be a long race. This was a long one. It’s going to be a true battle tomorrow.”