Sharpie Mini 300 - Ford Post-Race Quotes

JON WOOD – No. 47 Clorox Ford Fusion (Finished 43rd) – WHAT HAPPENED? “I honestly don’t know. We obviously had trouble in qualifying and we had to go to the back, but I was passing cars. The next thing I know, I don’t know. It just took off. I don’t know if something broke or what happened, but something did happen. It was very unfortunate.” IT LOOKED LIKE THE STEERING WHEEL CAME OFF IS THAT WHAT HAPPENED? “I wish I could use that excuse. I don’t know. From the replay that I saw earlier, it does indicate that something broke. I don’t know what because I was driving along and the next thing I know it’s in pieces and I’m hearing, ‘Are you OK? Are you OK?’ I’m fine. I hate it for Clorox and I hate it for all of my guys. We’ve had nothing but bad luck here at Bristol the whole day.” HOW ARE YOU FEELING? “You can’t stop a train. You can derail it, but you can’t stop it.”

DAVID GILLILAND – No. 25 freecreditreport.com Ford Fusion (Finished 35th) – “It just got hot. We were having some overheating problems all day and we came in and took some tape off of it, but it just wasn’t enough. It just got too hot. We cooked her. It’s just a shame. Our freecreditreport.com Ford Fusion was pretty good today. We didn’t have a winning car, but we weren’t in danger of going a lap down and we were doing what we needed to do to get a good finish. We just don’t have any luck right now, but I’m real proud of the guys. We unloaded here and, overall minus the finish, we had a good weekend. We had good practices and a good qualifying effort, we just came up a little bit short here in the race.”

MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Dish Network Ford Fusion (Finished 2nd) – “I was too tight on those last set of tires. We were real good before that and I just got too tight and I just couldn’t even quite get to him. I just couldn’t quite get it done. At the end of the run we were OK, but when we got tied up with Ryan it kind of bent my fender in and I think it knocked my toe up a little and I was just too tight after that to get anything done. It was a great race. The Dish Network guys did a good job. We just didn’t quite have enough to get to him. I wish we could have got to him and made it a little more exciting.”

TODD KLUEVER – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (Finished 12th) – “It was a bad day for us but a really good finish for what we probably should have had out of here. I can’t say enough about Eddie and all these guys on this 3M car. They never q uit. They just keep working and working. I worked hard in the car, too. I had a little problem with the alternator and had to kill all the fans, so it was a rather warm day with no cool box. After all we had been through and we got in that second wreck and they beat the hood back down and taped it up I said, ‘After all we’ve been through today, they aren’t gonna knock us out of this one.’ I’m just really proud of the guys. We should have been out of here with about a 25th-place finish, but they fought hard and got a 12th-place finish. I was just a little too loose there at the end.” THE FIRST WRECK WAS CLASSIC BRISTOL WHERE EVERYONE CHECKED UP. “There’s just nowhere to go when they wreck on the straightaway like that. I was really disappointed. Eddie’s pit strategy was perfect, but for some reason we really got the shaft on that deal. We were supposed to be the leader. Everybody pitted and we stayed out. As far as I could tell, that means we were the leader. I don’t know what the deal was. I know a pit open light didn’t come on or whatever, but we were supposed to be the leader. I’m really disappointed about that. That would have been a solid top 10 run, if not a top 5, and for lack of a better term we got the shaft on it. I’m a little bit upset about that. We’re gonna have to figure out how that keeps happening and how to get that fixed.”

GREG BIFFLE – No. 37 Cub Cadet Ford Fusion (Finished 7th) – “I thought we had a better race car than that. I was real disappointed. The guys did a great job, I just must have got the chassis off a tiny bit there at the end unfortunately. But we still ended up with a top 10 and that’s pretty decent.”

MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 59 Kingsford Ford Fusion (Finished 28th) – THERE MUST BE NOTHING WORSE THAN HAVING TO RIDE AROUND ALL THOSE LAPS AFTER GETTING COLLECTED IN THAT EARLY WRECK. “It was really difficult because I was just trying to stay out of the way. You’re on the bottom groove and all the marbles and you’re clipping the apron all the time trying to keep out of the way and it was just a long, long day. We just kept ticking off those race laps and somehow finished with a 28th-place. I was trying to do the right thing up there, but you can’t help it when someone just knocks you out.” WHAT HAPPENED IN THE WRECK? “I haven’t seen the video of it, but someone got racy there. I gave him plenty of room and somehow we still made contact.”

DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 Discount Tire Ford Fusion (Finished 13th) – A 13TH-PLACE FINISH – “Let’s call it 12B. I hate to finish 13th and have any bad luck for tomorrow. Our goal here on the Discount Tire team is to be in the top 10 every week and we feel like it’s close. The competition is just about as much in the top 10 as in the Cup side and we want to be in that top 10 every week. We felt like we were close. It’s all in one piece and we felt we could have been a little more aggressive at times and really fought hard to try to get another position, but it just wasn’t worth it. It was a great points day for us. I just wanted to finish on the lead lap because we’ve always got a lot more of these.” YOU DIDN’T HAVE MUCH ADVERSITY TODAY. “Our race was clean the whole race other than that call on NASCAR’s behalf with that caution. We were gonna kind of be set. We weren’t gonna come in and we were gonna be in the top two or three with a lot of buffers between us and the other cars that pitted. Our car was better over the long runs and it came to me over time. It wasn’t that super-fast the first few laps, but we were gonna stay out and with as many cautions as we were having and as difficult as it is to pass, I think we were gonna be alright and then they said that everybody got their spot. That was kind of strange, but it was a good day for us.”

CARL EDWARDS – No. 60 Scotts Miracle Gro Ford Fusion – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – “I just can’t thank Matt Kenseth enough for racing me that clean. He’s so great here and it means the world to beat him. He had my heart beating for sure. My thanks to Coca-Cola and Scotts and Office Depot and my crew. This is so much fun.” THE 5 CAR WAS COMING TOO. “Kyle is unbelievable here. It looked like racing back in Missouri back on dirt. He’d pitch it in the corner and just slide it all the way around.” NASCAR RULED IN YOUR FAVOR ON THE PIT ROAD ISSUE. “Let me go on the record for saying that, as far as I’ve been here, that’s unprecedented for them to make a judgment call and try to fix a problem and fix a mistake. I cannot thank NASCAR enough. I’m proud to be a part of a sport on a day like that. When they can do something like that, it means a lot.” YOU NOW HAVE A ‘W’ AT BRISTOL. “It’s unbelievable, man. Bristol is awesome.”

MATT KENSETH POST-RACE INTERVIEW – “It was a long one. I guess for us we had a really good handling car most of the day. I thought before we pitted the last time we were capable of winning, I was just a little too loose, which is a good thing when you’re behind people. My last set of tires I got a little tighter. A couple of frustrating things was the first time pit road was closed, there was a red flag and a red light and all of those guys that pitted, including Carl going under the commitment line, I don’t understand why they got their spot back. The second time, when they had it closed for the first two cars and then opened it, I can understand, but the first time it was closed as clear as could be. The red light and flag were waving the whole time, but at least they tried to straighten that mess out. Once we got that taken care of and then got racing Ryan there and kind of knocked my toe-in off and bent my fender for some reason, and after that we were just too tight to beat those guys. I’m not gonna say much more than that. We still finished second, but we thought we had a car to win and we’ve come close to a lot of these things. We’ve been able to win a few of them, but we’ve come pretty close and couldn’t quite get it done a lot of times, too.” COULD YOU HAVE GOTTEN TO HIM? “This place is tough. It’s kind of a give-and-take race track and sometimes I struggle when to give and when to take, so like early in the race – not real early in the race – right before the last pit stop I saw Ryan catch me, so I moved up and got out of his way so he didn’t burn up the tires and just gave him some room like I thought we always raced. Then when I got back to him 25 laps later after a pit stop, he raced the heck out of me and knocked my fender off and did all that, so sometimes that’s hard to figure out. I got under Carl two or three times and was to his left-rear tire and he chopped me pretty good and I got out of the gas, so that’s probably what he’s talking about. I could have stayed in it and kept my spot and got him turned around, but I had to get out of it a couple of times.” WHAT’S YOUR UNDERSTANDING ABOUT THE PIT ROAD MISCUE? “I don’t really have any idea. The first time we went by it was closed. NASCAR said to open it over the scanner, which our spotters always tell us pit road should be open, but we’re still supposed to pay attention and look at the flag and the light. The flag and the light was clearly red. There’s no arguing that. So some of those guys pitted and whatever, but then the next time when it should have been opened for lead-lap cars, they had it closed until the 5 went by and then they opened it, so that was a mistake and that they needed to straighten out. But the first time, Carl went under the cone and four or five guys pitted. I mean, the lights were on and it was closed and I didn’t understand why they got their spots back, but it probably would have been difficult to sort out who got the wrong end or who got the right end, so they probably did the right thing and just lined it back up how it was before they pitted and went from there.” WAS IT THE SAME CAUTION YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT OR A DIFFERENT ONE? “No, it was the same caution. That caution they said they should open the pits and we went down there and it was still closed. The 5 stayed out, like he should have because it was red, and then the 60 went under the commit cone and went back on the track and then I think four or five them behind me pitted. Then the next time we went by, I can’t remember what happened, I think they left it closed. And then the next time we went by it was closed until the 5 drove by the cone and then they opened it, so that was weird. Some of us pitted and then all of a sudden the light wasn’t working and they opened it back up or something. So it was a little bit confusing, but, for the first time, it was for sure closed. After that it was hard to keep track because there was four or five laps of pitting or not pitting there.” DID YOU GET THE LEAD AT THAT POINT? “No, I don’t think I led. I don’t think I ever had the lead.”

CARL EDWARDS POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE – “The cautions were the biggest thing from the beginning. It was just caution after caution. PK and the guys did such a great job with the car. It ran really well on the short runs and it went great on the long runs and we just dodged some accidents. The most forgettable thing about the day was getting bottled up and spinning out Kyle Busch. I didn’t want to see his day ended like that, so that was a bad thing. But, other than that, the end of the race was great. To be able to hold off somebody as great as Matt Kenseth at a place like this means a lot to me. That made the win very special.”

PIERRE KUETTEL, Crew Chief – “I was real worried about Matt Kenseth. Running in there second, it was nice to finish one-two as teammates. He always has a strong car here, but we got this Moisture Control Ford Fusion dialed in and Carl was able to get out front and stay out there.”

JACK ROUSH, Car Owner – “We really enjoy coming down and visiting with Jeff Byrd and Wayne Estes and all the guys down here. They do such a great job. The fans really see the greatest show, I think, in stock car racing here at Bristol. This is just the greatest venue. You race wheel-to-wheel, 15-second laps, 43 cars on the race track and there isn’t a bad seat in the house. It’s just wonderful. I was watching the race develop and thinking about what a great time the fans were having all the way through. We had great cars today. Todd Kluever did a good job. David Ragan did a nice job. Of course, Matt and Carl, I thought Matt had the best car, but Carl had the position. They came down pit road and made an adjustment in the tire pressure and PK pulled his magic off there and got Carl out to where he could do his business and stay in front, but it was gonna be a tight race. It was gonna be a really tight race with Kyle Busch there. I thought that Kyle Busch probably had the best car. Certainly if he was able to keep it on the rear tires it was gonna be good. It looked like he was a little loose and making black marks there on the straightaway, but we just go to Bristol and we have such a great time. PK, I know, really did a nice job today and, of course, Carl stuck that backflip. I’m really uncomfortable whenever he does that over asphalt like that. I’m not sure what kind of insurance his mother has on him, but I’m sure I don’t have enough.”

CARL EDWARDS CONTINUED – IS THERE AN ADVANTAGE TO RUNNING ON SATURDAY WITH THE CARS BEING DIFFERENT NOW OR WOULD YOU CONSIDER MOVING AWAY FROM SATURDAY SHOWS? “The car is a lot different than the car we’re gonna race tomorrow. Today’s car that we raced in the Busch Series is significantly different, so, yeah, the carryover stuff is a lot less. The competition and the fun and getting to win races is why I race in the Busch Series. It really wouldn’t matter to me if we raced on a dirt track outside on Saturdays, I’d still be doing it. I don’t know. My mission this year is to win the championship and that’s what I’m focused on in the Busch Series. I don’t know what I’m gonna do next year, but I sure am enjoying it right now.”

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – ARE YOU ANY LESS WILLING TO FIELD BUSCH TEAMS WITH THE COT BEING SO DIFFERENT. “First of all, being involved in the Busch Series and, for that matter, the Craftsman Truck Series gives us a chance to develop sponsors that have got a growing appetite and growing means to do things with. As interesting and as much fun as it is to develop young drivers like David Ragan and Todd Kluever and, of course, Danny O’Quinn and the other folks we’ve had in our program lately, it’s been great to bring sponsors that have got growing needs as well. When the cars were similar as they have been, there has been the perceived benefit of being able to see how the tire would act on Saturday and be able to carry that information to Sunday. But the cars are gonna be dramatically different. The car of tomorrow has got altogether different challenges than the Busch car of today has, so I don’t think there will be any benefit there. I was curious to see what Carl was gonna say as to whether or not the only reason he raced on Saturday was to benefit his program on Sunday. If there’s a race and we’ve got time and we’ve got sponsors, we’re gonna go race wherever it is on a NASCAR track. Craftsman Trucks, if we could do all three of them the same weekend I would be happy and I’m sure Carl would like to drive all three as well.”

CARL EDWARDS CONTINUED – DID MATT HAVE A FASTER CAR THAN YOU AND HOW HARD WOULD IT HAVE BEEN TO GET PAST YOU? “I don’t know. I think my car was just a little bit faster, but it was starting to get extremely loose on corner entry, so I had to hit the corner just perfect and when I’d have a perfect lap, I could pull away about a car length, and when I’d slip up, he’d close back in about a car length. At that point, though, he was probably making better laps on average, so I guess that would make his car a tick faster, but it sure was fun. There’s a lot of nerves in that car with like five to go and he’s a car length off the bumper. That’s exciting. That feeling and that amount of anxiety and anticipation and excitement when you win, that’s what makes this so much fun for me.” KYLE BUSCH WAS FRUSTRATED WITH LAP TRAFFIC. WHAT ABOUT YOU? “I thought, for the most part, everybody did a good job. I can understand Kyle’s frustration. There were one or two guys in particular that were extremely tough to pass and if they weren’t so competitive it would have been comical. I didn’t understand exactly what they were doing, but that was probably the source of his frustration. I thought for the most part everybody did a really good job. I also want to comment on NASCAR letting Kyle and I come in the pits the second time around because they threw that flag while we were passing the pit opening. I thought that was a class act of them to do that. They could have just as easily said, ‘Well, you guys are gonna just have to deal with it,’ and that was pretty cool that NASCAR helped us out there.”

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – HOW MUCH HAS THE WINDOW OF INGENUITY CLOSED FOR CUP TEAMS OVER THE LAST FIVE YEARS? THE BOX IS GETTING SO MUCH SMALLER NOW. “A lot of young people that come, and, for that matter, people in their middle age that come to own teams like I did in my forties, really saw the chance to be inventive and to have a strategy maybe that would find loopholes in the rulebook – to do things that other people hadn’t thought of. To be able to invent things and put things in combinations that were different, but today NASCAR doesn’t really want you to do that. They want you to have an IROC-type car, just like everybody else’s car, and leave it for the drivers to settle. For the teams like I do, that have got great drivers, I guess it doesn’t make a pound of difference either way, but it’s not as interesting to me. If they’d set the rules at the beginning of the year and let you find holes and make things that were different than anybody else’s part, and put them on your race car and use them until the time rolled around for the next calendarization of a revision of the rulebook, it would be great. Looking at five years ago, I don’t know what the numbers are but I’m gonna pick a number and I’m gonna say we had 20 templates for our car. Today we’ve got 100. It’s five times more complex and it’s gotten increasingly complex every year. They’ve got this egg crate on the front end, an egg crate with a hydraulic mechanism – maybe it’s electric in winch – but then they’ve got such an inspection crate envelope for the outside of the car that there’s not nearly the room for the crew chiefs who would look at the car and talk to the car like Harry Hogge did and go out and have a conversation with the car and talk to the wind and go out and make its magic work. You can’t do that today. Everybody has pretty much got the same car. After practice today, after happy hour, we sat and we talked with the engineers and the crew chiefs and there isn’t the reason to have the cars different as there has been in the past. If you understand what the best car is – a Chevrolet, a Ford, a Dodge or a Toyota – you put that package of springs and shocks in it and the drivers will be able to drive it. The good drivers will be able to drive it with good effect, so, yeah, it’s definitely given the race teams a lot less opportunity to really do things different and better. I think there’s gonna be pretty much one package that’s gonna be best for every one of these tracks we go to and the sooner people get on it and the sooner they’re able to adopt it, it’s gonna work regardless of manufacturer and, to me, that won’t be as interesting as it’s been in the past, but that’s the way it is.” CAN YOU COMMENT ON HAVING TO GO DOWN TO 4 TEAMS BY 2010 AND WILL YOUR PARTNERSHIP WITH FENWAY SOMEHOW ALLOW YOU TO KEEP WHAT YOU’VE GOT NOW? “We’re on a strategy with an agreement with NASCAR that by 2010 we’ll be down to four teams. The arrangement that I’ve got with John Henry and his involvement with the team has no bearing on that. I am looking for a host arrangement with another owner to take one of my good programs by 2010 and then I hope, like Bobby Ginn came into the program and took Mark Martin as seed corn to develop his program, I hope to be able to help another Ford team be able to do that with one of my programs in 2010. I have the same enthusiasm towards seeing success there as I’ve had for the other things we’ve done. But John Henry doesn’t pose any opportunity to do anything different than what we already had strategized.” IS THERE A RULE AS TO HOW CLOSELY YOU CAN BE ASSOCIATED WITH ANOTHER TEAM? “To boundaries, the word is affiliation and I’ve had discussions at length with Mike Helton and with Brian about what kind of affiliations that they want the teams to have. I guess what they want is they don’t want somebody to come into the business and to be able to buy all the engineering and all the cars and all the engines and everything it would take – they really want people, in spite of the fact they don’t want you to go out and do things different than anybody else – they want the owners to have an intellectual involvement with their teams. That winds up being the tough part. How much do you help somebody before it’s too much. They’re trying to work with us and give us encouragement as they are the Hendrick organization and Gibbs and everybody else that’s got the wherewithal to help other people. They’re trying to tell us how to do it so it will be good for the sport going forward.” DOES HOST ARRANGEMENT MEAN YOU HAVE TO SELL THE TEAM? “I’ll have to sell it. I’ll won’t be able to have a vested financial interest in it even though I’ll have a spiritual and emotional attachment to it. I feel the same way about all the Ford teams. My heart is out there for the Wood Brothers on a tough day. I’m there with them when they do well. I’ve been frustrated with Robert Yates’ problems and look forward to his success. I certainly enjoyed the way he was able to run at Daytona and I hope that gave that organization good things for the sponsor, so, yeah, there’s an opportunity here with plucking a team off of our five down to four and then make that branch bear fruit for another owner in the years to come.” HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHICH ONE? “That is a really tough question. Happily, I don’t have to make that decision for another several years.” DO YOU WAIT UNTIL THE DEADLINE TO SELL THE TEAM? “I’ll wait until I’m ready.” MIKE HELTON ADMITTED THE MISTAKE ON PIT ROAD. DOES THIS GIVE YOU HOPE THAT THE NEXT TIME YOU MAKE AN APPEAL IT MIGHT BE LOOKED UP MORE FAVORABLY? “They’re altogether two different subjects and I’ll answer them separately. Everybody was aware, from listening to the radios, Kyle Busch’s team saw the red flag and understood that it was closed, and Carl saw the red flag and understood that it was closed and the people behind them realized that it was open as they had made the switch or made the communications work. So there was a mistake that had been made. Carl told me privately, ‘I was so mad.’ I tried to give him confidence and I said, ‘When they make a mistake like that, you can hope that they’ll fix it.’ If they recognize they’ve made it, they’ll fix it at that time and if they don’t believe they’ve made a mistake, they won’t fix it and maybe apologize tomorrow or something if it becomes clear. But they try to do the right thing and it was clear that a mistake had been made and they corrected as they should once they recognized it. As far as the whole appeal process for matters involving inspection, I’ve been to the trough, I think four times – maybe five – and I’ve come away empty handed everytime and on two or three of those occasions I’ve taken the people that were involved on my side to the lie detector and we figured out exactly who said what and how it worked and we had it all documented. It didn’t matter what the truth was. They made their decision and that’s the way it was.”

CARL EDWARDS CONTINUED – MATT THOUGHT YOU MADE A COMMITMENT LINE VIOLATION, BUT DID IT MATTER SINCE THEY REVERTED TO THE LAST CAUTION? “I think what happened there was I looked over and the flag was red and the light was red. And then somebody screamed in my ear that pit road was open or something, so I kind of turned down and then I just thought, ‘Man, it’s red, I can’t come in here. So it was kind of in a transition from being closed to open. I kind of think it was a debacle there, so I’m glad, like I said, it’s really awesome that NASCAR did what they did. Jack told me they would fix it, but that was a pretty big fix for something right in the middle of the race and I just, once again, can’t say how awesome that is. I’ve been racing for 10 or 12 years now and I’ve been to a lot of race tracks and it’s really rare, even at your local dirt track, somebody that will hold up the race and put everybody right where they really believe they belong and that’s pretty cool.”

PIERRE KUETTEL CONTINUED ––– HOW FAST DID YOU JUMP OFF THE PIT BOX WHEN THAT HAPPENED? “Pretty quick. The spotter was telling that pit road was closed. I got information from the official in the pit that pit road was open, so I was the one screaming in his ear that the pits were open. It got pretty confusing pretty quick. After we figured out that we were stuck out, then it was time to go lobby to make sure the right decision is finished. As far as that goes, NASCAR did a great job in lining everybody back up and finishing it how it should have been finished. I was told on pit road that pit road was open. The spotter is telling him it’s closed. Carl made a good call staying out. I don’t exactly know the exact events because we’re all the way on the other end of that to see where the flagman was or what the lights were, but they took care of it correctly.”

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – THERE WAS A DUST UP A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO WITH TEAMMATES BATTLING FOR THE LEAD. WERE YOU WORRIED ABOUT THAT? “You’re speaking of the problem that the Ganassi organization had with Pablo and with Scott Pruett? I hope that our guys will race clean. I hope that they’ll race everybody on the race track clean, but, certainly, I expect them to race one another clean. If they make a mistake and run wheel to wheel and wind up creating a problem for both cars or one car, it will be sad but we’ll get over it. I don’t think there was an intention that Juan Pablo had to turn Scott Pruett. If he had been saying, ‘Watch me turn him. I’m gonna get him,’ on the radio and then he turned him, then there certainly would be an issue with that and a very hard meeting for the people involved, but there are no rules. There are no team orders. In fact, I look forward to the day when we’ll be lined up corner to corner or wheel to wheel coming off the final corner and spin both of them across the start-finish line in a photo finish to see who wins.”