Arizona.Travel 200 - Ford Post-Race Quotes

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 Arby's Ford Fusion - (finished 2nd, qualified 9th) - HOW ARE YOU ARMS? "It's already, we just lost the steering when it got hot, there was something odd going on. It wasn't really that hard to turn, it was harder than normal and you couldn't feel the front tires that good. It was a great run for our Arby's Fusion. I feel bad; we got beat again this week. We just came up a little bit short. We were off of front grip in the middle of the corner and Kyle's in good stuff and he's a great race car driver. He's real smart, he knew where to put his car exactly in the right spot so I couldn't pass him. It was a great job by him. I wish we were in victory lane, but it was a good race for us." HOW MUCH WAS NOT HAVING THE FULL STEERING AFFECTING THE RACE? "It wasn't bad, but that long green run was real bad there. In two laps, I couldn't get him. At the end, it wasn't a factor, but with 15 laps run toward the end, it seemed like we could make a little ground there and I think we might have had a shot. It slowed us down a little bit, but it probably wasn't a difference in winning or losing."

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 Arby's Ford Fusion PRESS CONFERENCE
TELL US ABOUT YOUR RUN. "It was alright. We were a little bit off of Kyle there. In a long run, we were a lot closer to him then when we were in a short run. We never really exactly got the long run needed. I found a spot that worked for me good and three and four and he was smart enough to get in that spot and I really couldn't get around him on the bottom down there. I could get him a little bit in one and two, but not enough to get down there and complete the pass. It was a good race for us. We ran pretty good, we were just a tick off and he was just a little better than us all day." HOW TOUGH WAS DRIVING WITHOUT POWER STEERING? "I think it really wasn't that bad. Physically it wasn't that hard to turn but at the end of the run, it would stick wherever you had it. It was really hard to feel the front tires. You'd give it so much wheel, you couldn't tell if the tires were chattering or not. You'd have to give it some more. It was tough for that and was tough to catch it if you got loose. Physically it wasn't really that hard, you just couldn't really feel the front tires the way you needed to. If you build a car with manually steering, it's not hard to steer. Not many of us are old enough any more but before they made power steering in passenger cars, they weren't harder to steer than the cars with power steering because they built them for that. And we build our cars like that. When you build cars with power steering and it's hydraulic system and you lose the hydraulic system or power steering, it's 10 times hard than if you set it up not to have it." IS FINISHING SECOND GETTING FRUSTRATING? "Yes and no, but it's second best. Yeah, you'd like to have some wins, we only have two wins for the year and we wish we had more than that. The team is certainly performed there. There have been a couple days we got beat, cars being faster than us like today. The 5 car was a little faster than us. Then there've been days where we got beat being spun out on the track, a bad pit stop or me messing up somewhere. It feels good to have cars that competitive where you can be up there in the top five all the time with them. Certainly when you finish second that many times, you wish you had more wins. If you put yourself in position, you hope to win more races than that." WHEN YOUR RACING SIDE-BY-SIDE IN A BUSCH RACE IS THERE LESS PRESSURE OR ARE YOU HAVING MORE FUN AS OPPOSED TO RUNNING IN THE CUP RACE. "When you're racing for the lead it's fun no matter what you're driving. Whether it's a short track car at home or Busch car or Cup car or whatever it is. Racing for wins is what it's all about. I wouldn't say it's any more or less fun than racing for a win. But if you win and lucky enough to win a Cup race it is a little more exciting and feels better. It's hard to race against more good teams and drivers and stuff. To win a Cup race feels better because it's a bigger accomplishment and all that. As far as just when you're in a car and racing for the lead, the Busch cars almost race harder, the races are shorter, we have more down force and less horsepower and you really drive them really hard all the day. The racing is fun, like I said the race is shorter, so you really don't have that middle of the race lull where everybody is getting themselves in position. They're both fun to race if you're going for the lead." WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT A DRIVER WINNING THE TRUCK RACE LAST NIGHT, THE BUSCH RACE TODAY, HE'S RUNNING A LATE MODEL TONIGHT AND A CUP CAR TOMORROW? THAT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING YOU WOULD HAVE LIKED. "Yeah, I started thinking about him [Kyle Busch] being 13 years younger than me and 13 years ago I would have loved it. But tonight, I'm going back and going to sleep early. It's just youth, I think."

CARL EDWARDS - No. 60 World Financial Group Ford Fusion (finished 7th, qualified 28th) - "We just fought all day starting from 28th and I think seventh was the best we could have hoped for. The car just wasn't fast, the guys were great on pit road, PK [Pierre Kuettel] had a great strategy and we ended up seventh." HOW DID YOU AVOID THE CAUTIONS? "We were lucky and didn't get caught up in any of them. There were some that looked unavoidable and we were in front of them." ARE YOU ABLE TO RACE FOR FUN NOW THAT YOU'VE CLINCHED THE CHAMPIONSHIP? "We'll, it's not fun to run seventh. We want to win races, so we'll go to Homestead and try to win there."

MARCOS AMBROSE - No. 59 Kingsford/Bashas' Ford Fusion (finished 15th, qualified 38th) -"It was a long day, but we fought all day and never gave up. We went a lap down and then got it back. We held on to the end." HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO MAKE A DIFFICULT CAR BETTER? "I just want to show my guys, Kingsford and everybody that I'm worthy to be here and worthy to have a shot at it next year. I want to may everybody back that has helped with my racing and show them that we don't give up and we keep getting better and better." WAS THE CAR GETTING BETTER THROUGHOUT THE RACE? "Yeah, we just kept tuning it and working on it and drove harder."

DAVID RAGAN - No. 6 Discount Tire Ford Fusion - (finished 23rd, qualified 12th) - "We just fought poor track position all day and some of those guys behind us the last 50 laps had fresh tires on. Our car was okay at times and wasn't okay at times. It was a really weird day for us. We practice good, qualified average and at started the race and it was really tight. We made an adjustment and it was really loose on us. I was back and forth and we really didn't know which way to go. I didn't really know what I needed to be better. We rode around in the top-15 there and then there at the end, we probably should have gotten tires. When you're riding on the edge and you stay out on tires it makes it tough. Then we fell back there to where all the lap cars were racing hard and we kinda got what we asked for racing back there in the back. I saw the 25 [Richard Johns] and everybody wrecking in front of me and as soon as I could get off the throttle, I had already run over whoever that was in front of me. I hate that we got involved in all that junk and but that's kind of what we deserved for being back there." DO YOU THINK YOU WERE LUCKY TO FINISH? "Yeah, we are. It didn't tear up the chassis or anything. We came in and put two tires on the right side and patched it up a little bit. The flat tires pushed the door and stuff like that. We certainly wished we could have got that top-15 or top-10, but it wasn't meant to be. We weren't good enough today."

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 3M Scotch Tape Ford Fusion (finished 36th, qualified 24th) - "The things like that will happen. It's just one of those racing deals. It's unfortunate for our 3M Ford Fusion; it was really fast. We shouldn't have been back there. We had a bad pit stop or something happened that hung us up and we lost all of our track position. We you get back there like that, it's just going to happen." YOU WERE ABLE TO RECOVER FROM THE INCIDENT EARLIER ON IN THE RACE, WHAT HAPPENED THERE? "I got pinched down a little bit by the 38 car [Jason Leffler] and we were being aggressive there at the beginning and the 38 didn't know we were down there, I think, and kinda pinched us down and we got our right front fender down on the apron and got us turned around. But we bounced back from that; it really wasn't a big deal. I think the later pit stop is really what did us in."