RoadLoans.com 200 - Ford Post-Race Quotes

JAMIE McMURRAY – No. 26 Dish Network Ford Fusion (finished 40th) – “I don’t know if there was oil or something up on top of the race track. My spotter was coming on, telling me, ‘Go a little high in one,’ and the 99 car got underneath me and I really didn’t have a choice. And when I got up there, I was going to let the 99 car go and got to the gas and just couldn’t hang on to it.”

ARE YOU OKAY? “Oh, yeah. It didn’t really hurt. It tore the car up to where we can’t repair it, I don’t think. But, nothing for me.”

STEPHEN LEICHT – No. 90 citifinancial Ford Fusion (finished 41st) – “Something definitely blew internally in the engine. But, I can’t say enough about Robert Yates and Doug Yates and their engines. Their engines are unbelievable and virtually indestructible, and it’s only once in a great while that they have a problem like this. So, can’t blame that on them at all. It’s racing, and it’s going to happen. Unfortunately, we’re tight for points right now, trying to get inside the top 15 in owner’s points.”

CARL EDWARDS – No. 60 World Financial Group Ford Fusion (finished 6th) – “I just got caught under that lapped car. He didn’t know I was there. He was driving down the middle of the front straightaway, and he was up a lane going into the corner. I thought he was giving me the bottom and I snuck it under there and he didn’t know I was there, or he didn’t care, I don’t know which. I’m sure he’ll come over and tell me what happened.”

WITHOUT THAT INCIDENT WITH 35 LAPS TO GO, DID YOU HAVE A CAR GOOD ENOUGH TO WIN? “No. Denny Hamlin’s car was the car to beat. That car looked like it was fun to drive, so my hat’s off to those guys, they did their job. It looked like our car felt the last time we were here.”

WHAT IF YOU WOULD’VE GOTTEN OUT FIRST ON THAT LAST PIT STOP? “No. Unless Denny got a flat tire or decided he wanted to quit, he was going to win that race. That car was awesome.”

IT WAS ANOTHER GOOD POINTS DAY FOR YOU AND FOR THE TEAM IN THE OWNER’S POINTS RACE. “Yeah, it was a great points day. That’s what we needed to do. We didn’t need to get caught up in that wreck. That scared me a little bit. The 29 had bad luck; they got caught up in a wreck and we needed to capitalize. So, it’s good that we came home sixth. That’s good.”

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (finished 9th) – YOU CAME BACK TO GET A TOP-10. “Yeah, we did. We probably couldn’t have beaten the 20 – given the track position we may have given him a run for his money, anyway. I was just a tiny bit too loose when I was out in front of him. You never know unless you got a chance at it, and we beat ourselves on pit road today. This Busch pit crew, they’ve been phenomenal all season, gaining me spots on pit road and doing all kinds of stuff. And today was our off day. They just made a few mistakes today, and we had to make up for it on the race track. The 3M Ford Fusion car drove pretty good – just not quite the way I wanted it, but we ended up coming back from where we did, so that’s pretty good.”

THERE WERE A NUMBER OF CAUTIONS TODAY. WAS THAT A RESULT OF A GREEN TRACK BECAUSE OF THE RAIN BEFORE THE RACE? “No, I just think it was guys racing hard. That’s all it was, just guys racing hard. I don’t think it was any more than that.”

MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 59 Kingsford Ford Fusion (finished 20th) – ON FINISHING IN THE TOP 20 IN A BACK-UP CAR. “Yeah, that was back-up car. We struggled all day with it. I just feel bad for the guys, crashing that car in qualifying, but we fought all day. It was a race of attrition. We did okay. We stayed out of trouble and did what we needed to do.”

“We just hit this track hard all day and wore out everything underneath the car. I’m surprised it lasted. As a team, between the 47 and the 59, we’ve crashed a lot of cars this year. We’ve just been sharing cars around and we just didn’t have a good back-up for here. I guess we paid the price. It’s the first time we’ve needed a back-up since California, the second race, so I guess it was due sometime.”

WHY DO YOU THINK THERE WERE SO MANY WRECKS TODAY? “Just guys driving hard. You’d see guys getting loose, knocking guys out of the way. It’s just a tough race track. You get a bunch of wanna-be’s and a bunch of great drivers from Cup coming down and it’s going to be messy.”

MATT KENSETH press conference

MATT KENSETH – No. 17 iLevel Ford Fusion (finished 3rd) – “There’s a lot to talk about, I guess. We started in the back. We didn’t run good at all yesterday, and this morning we took it apart and put Carl’s set-up in it and it ran a lot better today. We still weren’t near as good as the 20 and a couple of them other guys, but we did some pit strategy to get some track position and then we had it running good enough where we could kind of hang out where we were at.”

YOU GOT CAUGHT UP IN A WRECK. HOW IS IT THAT THAT CAN HAPPEN AND YOU CAN STILL FINISH TOWARD THE FRONT? “We got fortunate that it didn’t wreck the important parts of the body – it didn’t wreck the front fenders, that sees the air first, and the hood, and all that. It kind of caved the left-side door in, which really doesn’t matter, and it did cave in the right-rear quarter behind the tire, which is very important and those guys did a very good job of fixing and getting it pretty straight again. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot better – and actually our right-rear quarter panel is probably more important than the spoiler to hold the car into the track. So, they did a good job making repairs and we got lucky where we got it, but, we shouldn’t have been way back there to start with and we wouldn’t have been in that. But the wreck happened and it was, I don’t know, it was forever, four or five seconds later, and I got spun out – got ran over and got spun out, so that was quite surprising.”

ON THE PIT CREW. “They did a good job fixing it, and then we kind of did a pit strategy deal. Our pit stops weren’t bad, but they weren’t exceptional, really. We actually would lose just a little bit, so they did a good job on strategy and fixing it, and then on that last pit stop we stayed out with Martin and a couple of them other guys. So, we kind of more did it with strategy and they did a great job today repairing the car and getting it back in condition to race.”

WHAT IS IT LIKE IN THE CAR WHEN YOU’RE DEHYDRATED OR SICK? DO YOU JUST BLOCK IT OUT? HOW DO YOU DRIVE A RACE LIKE THAT? “I don’t ever drive dehydrated. I drink a lot of Gatorade. We did some studies with Gatorade and got the Gatorade-in-car drinking system and a lot of other ways to stay hydrated, so that’s never been a problem. But, it was really hot today, especially after the rain. It was humid and hot. But we’ve been having a lot of that lately, so I was kind of ready for it. But, you just kind of block it out when you’re running. When you get under caution you think about it a little bit if you’re not feeling good, and after the race. But when you’re running under green you don’t really think about it and it doesn’t really affect you as much as you think it would.”