Food City 500 - Ford Post-Race Quotes

DAVE BLANEY – No. 77 Jasper Engines & Transmissions Taurus (finished 38th) – "Michael Waltrip just lost it in front of us, I was close to him and I just got caught up in it."

MARK MARTIN – No. 6 Viagra Taurus (finished 41st) – "I don’t know. They started bumping in front of me, and run over in back of me."

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 Grainger Taurus (finished fifth) – "I got to thank these guys. We got the nose knocked in here, and that’s what happens when you race at Bristol. You know, we came back from it and had to go to the end of the longest line; I sped on pit road. It was just a long day for us. I feel really good. I was worried about running 500 laps here at Bristol, but, man I feel great. I’m not even tired. I’m pretty excited to get the Grainger Ford up there. Everybody’s done a good job here. Since we missed that race in Las Vegas, we’ve come a long way, and I’m pretty happy about all the progress we’ve made since then."

WHAT DOES THE TOP-FIVE MEAN FOR THIS TEAM AS IT CONTINUES TO GROW? "It means a lot for us. We obviously weren’t as good as we needed to be. Obviously, the front of the car’s hurt now, the dynamics of it. We were running hot. I feel we that if we could’ve got track position we might’ve been able to be as good as the leader was, and the 17. We were definitely catching them at the end of that run. We were the fastest car on the race track. But, you know, that’s what happens. You get tore up here. We had to stop one time because I knocked the grill in a little bit on the re-start, and that’s what happens."

MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWALT Power Tools Taurus (finished second) – "I feel lucky. Started provisional here at Bristol and coming home second. So, it was a great race. Me and Bobby had to go there a little at the end, and I got my fender knocked in there a little. I was hoping I could make a run at Kurt before that happened. But, it was a good race. It’s always physical out there, and we didn’t have a sctratch on the car there until right at the end, so it was pretty good." YOU EXTENDED YOUR LEAD IN THE STANDINGS… "Yeah, that’s a good thing. It’s early to worry about points, but it sure is nice to be running this good, so I’ll enjoy it while we have it. Right now, it’s real competitive, but this sport could turn around on you in a heartbeat. So, we’re just enjoying it and we’re working as hard as we can to keep it up."

ELLIOTT SADLER – No. 38 M&M’s Taurus (finished 21st) – "Man, that was just a tough day. We just struggled all weekend long with this car. It was tight in the center and the nose would just slide all over the place. These was one point where we were running okay, and then got called to pit road because there was a piece of debris in the side door. I hope this is the end of the tough luck. There’s one thing for sure: This M&M’s team knows how to work on a race car during a race. They made a difference and then the car got tight again, but my team is really jelling good this season, so far."

RICKY RUDD – No. 21 Motorcraft Taurus (finished fourth) – "It was just a good, solid run all day, but it was a good solid run."

WHAT ABOUT THE BUMP FROM TONY STEWART? "I don’t know what was on his brain. I think he had a little brain fade on the backstretch, I’m not really sure what was going on there. There was a wreck in front of us and we were stopping, and we’re dodging the wreck and he’s trying to race, I guess."

IT WAS A GREAT FINISH… "Yeah, seems like we got a lot of top-fives, top-twos and all that. Just didn’t have a winning car today. These guys did a heck of a job, all these guys on the on the Wood Brothers team, Motorcraft Ford, Air Force team. Did a heck of a job, just a little bit short at the end. Didn’t quite have the grip we needed, but come a long way. They kind of identified a lot of our problems and they’ve been working on it, so hopefully, we can just continue these good runs on out."

IS THIS A RACE THAT CAN VAULT YOU TO A BETTER SEASON? "We got off to a slower start than we expected, and it’s coming. This run today was just a good solid run, and great pit stops all day, great pit strategy. And we had to come back from a couple of wrecks, and everybody did their job today and we came out of there with a good top-five."

ON THE START OF THIS SEASON. "The biggest thing we did, we made a mistake. We all sat down as a team and looked at the new schedule and we said, hey, you only got five test dates, let’s make ’em count. At the beginning, let’s go use Kentucky, for Las Vegas and Atlanta, and it bit us. The track didn’t compare at all. When we got to the race track and it was raining, so our track time was cut short, so lack of track time is really what’s killed us. So we’ve identified the problems, been working on it. I wish we’d moved everything backwards a couple, three races, but it’s coming. I’m ticked to death with these guys." ON RACE STRATEGY. "I thought we were a good solid race team. I think we ended up fourth, I thought we had about a fourth-place car. Maybe third to sixth if you really depending on what kind of tires and adjustments you made. We didn’t have a winning car, but we had a good, solid top-five car. I think to show that we had to keep overcoming adversities. We started at the back, and overcame that, and we got spun one time and wrecked another time and just had to keep coming back."

LEN WOOD – co-owner, No. 21 Motorcraft Taurus – "This is the way we felt we should have been running all along, all year. Things haven’t gone our way, until today. I don’t think we had a car to win, but we were a good top-five most of the day. Just got different traffic put us in different places, but we’re just tickled with that."

MATT KENSETH Press Conference

Matt Kenseth – No. 17 DeWalt Power Tools Taurus – "It was eventful, like it always is at Bristol. It was pretty good for us, we had a good car all day. Started in the back, went to the front once, went to the back again and got back to the front, so it was a good day. We got lucky and missed all the wrecks, and it was a good day for us."

ON GETTING CAUGHT IN THE PITS TO GO A LAP DOWN. "Darn. What can you do? But it was very confusing. I knew there were still some cars out there, I thought we’d be at least two laps down. When you pit here under green, it’s very, very confusing, there’s so many cars all over the place, the track’s so small and you have no idea what’s going on. Once they told me I was one lap down and everybody was going to pit and I was going to be on the tail end, then I felt real good. I knew our car was as strong as anybody’s and even if they had 10-lap better tires I felt like we could get, even if there was a medium run there and usually after cautions there’s not, but even if we could run 10 or 20 laps, I felt good enough about staying in front of the leader, where I felt we could get our lap back and have shot at ’em. Once they said we were only one lap down, I felt okay about it."

WHAT COULD KURT BUSCH DOWN AT THE END? "What really seemed to happen to us at the end is I got a run on Bobby and got by him and was trying to points race, he was trying to protect his position and I was trying to take it, and it bent my right-front fender really bad, and my car wouldn’t turn for about 10 or 15 laps until it wore the metal away from the fender where the wheel would actually turn again, and Kurt got away. Before that, I felt like we would at least be able to get to him and have a run for him, but Kurt’s an awesome driver. I’ve never seen as much natural talent as I’ve seen in Kurt Busch and Greg Biffle before, so when them guys get in front and they got the tires all pointed in the same direction, they’re hard to beat."

FOUR ROUSH-BUILT ENGINES IN THE TOP-FIVE TODAY. HOW HARD WAS IT FOR EVERYONE AT ROUSH TO STAY CONSISTENT AND CALM THROUGH ALL THE PROBLEMS? "The motor thing is nothing I can really do about it. They’ve done a great, huge improvement since 2001 to where they’re at right now in a year and a half. They made tons of horsepower compared to what we used to have, and the durability’s been pretty decent, too. But a lot of times when you improve horsepower that fast you’re going to find other things that lived when you had less horsepower that maybe don’t live now or whatever. I don’t really know what all was going on. They had some issues with some runs with bad parts, and hopefully they got it all fixed. Like I say, I can’t change my strategy or do anything different than what we do. We just got to go run and hope for the best."

GREG BIFFLE Press Conference

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 Grainger Taurus – "It was pretty good day for us. I got my nose knocked in on one of those re-starts maybe about lap 170ish, 200, somewhere in there, and that really hurt the car. We had to take all the tape off the front, so I lost a lot of downforce in the front. Aerodynamics means a little bit here, but now a whole lot. But when you have to untape the bottom, the cars don’t drive nearly the same. Overall it was a great day for the Grainger car and the guys did a good job. We overheated, sped on pit road, had to go to the tailend of the longest line, had to stop and take more tape off. The grill’s damaged and they pulled one piece of tape off so we had to come back in and take the rest of it off. Just kind of frustrating from the driver’s seat, all the things that are going on and you keep getting put back and keep having to come in the pits and get put back and think you have a pretty good car. But I kept my cool and just worked my way up. There at the end, when that caution came out with 30 laps to go, it was too bad. I was the fastest car on the track and catching the 17. It’s pretty unfortunate for us. Our car didn’t go at all off that last caution. I don’t know what happened. But there at the end it started going again and the 21 and 40 came and got tires. I thought fir sure they’d get me. I don’t know what happened to the 40, must’ve got caught up in traffic."

ON RUNNING WINSTON CUP AT BRISTOL. "I’m a rookie in this series, running for Reybestos Rookie of the Year, and I learned so much by following Rusty Wallace yesterday in Happy Hour. It was incredible what I learned from him. I saw Kurt Busch and I was able to see some of the guys today, Sterling Marlin and some of the other guys, the way they run around here. And I talked to Jeff Gordon and some other guys about how much to use the brakes and found out the whole time I ran the Busch car here and this Cup car, I’m using too much brake entering the corner. Maybe it’s just my driving style, but I was able to adapt some of that. Although, I found myself late in the race using the brakes again, but I was catching the 17, I was the fastest car on the monitor. I don’t know what you can attribute that to. I guess everybody’s got to drive a little bit different. Great, great car and I’m looking forward to going to Texas."

YOU CAN HAVE SOME PROBLEMS HERE AND STILL DO WELL. "It’s survival of your race car and it just depends on how bad you get it tore up under those little bumps and bangs. I saw the whole side of the 32 got tore off when the 12 spun down there, and the 32 didn’t run the rest of the day. You can handle some damage and still run good, but when you start bending fenders and knocking the toe out of the front end, that’s one thing I’m pretty proud of is my car doesn’t have a scratch in it, either side of it, other than the nose where this accident happened on the re-start. Kurt jumped up into the second groove all of a sudden, and I thought he was going to pass the guy, so I got back in the throttle early and come to find out that everybody was stopping, so it was kind of my fault, and knocked the grill in and that’s what got us overheating. You can handle some bumps and bangs on the car and still finish well, but you got to be careful not to bend the fenders or knock the toe-in out. I never touched the suspension part or either side of the car’s perfectly straight."

WHAT ABOUT YOUR PIT STRATEGY? "This is obviously my first time doing this, running the 500 laps here. My opinion would’ve been not to come until you’re five laps from being out of gas. And it’s possible, these laps go by so fast, that if a guy had just a tiny bit different gas mileage, that could equate to 10 laps different than the next guy. I don’t think they were out of gas when they started coming down pit road, 24 and the 2. I just thought everybody would come. And our car was running good enough on those old tires that we didn’t feel a need to come down pit road right away. We would rather have the fresher tires at the end of the race then come in and sacrifice that track position. We were thinking about coming when the caution came out. We were going to come within the next five laps, so I think everybody was going to come in the next five, or maybe 10. Because we still had I think 20 laps to go. I’m not sure on that but I think we had 25 to 30 before we had to pit."

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TO YOU AFTER MISSING THE VEGAS RACE? "Missing the Vegas race really helped our race team more than if we would’ve qualified 36th at Vegas, because we knew that we were behind. Here’s the gist of it: We’re behind on race cars. We’re behind on people. We’re behind on the building. We’re behind on technology. At Roush, our cars aren’t built all by the same people, the bodies aren’t hung by all the same people. We run like five individual teams almost, but under one roof and working together amongst all the teams. So we’re responsible for building our own race cars. And it’s tough to get a group of guys together and say copy them and make everything the same. That’s a tough chore, a tough thing to bite off. And we’re third in line or whatever in line getting chassis out of the chassis shop, so everybody’s got to wait their turn. The 99’s building a bunch of new cars. So what happened is we got behind and we didn’t have good enough race cars built and done. We brought one Bristol car here. We brought a backup car, but it wasn’t made for this race track. Same thing, we’re taking our Atlanta car to Texas that if we’d crashed that car we’d be in deep trouble. It’s a new car, new race team blues to start a startup team. We’re not an established team. We didn’t come into running that number that was already running. We got all new guys working together and all kinds of things. I think it was a wake-up call for us to say, hey, these guys need some help over here, they’re behind, they don’t have any cars and maybe they need some extra help. We haven’t gotten any of that yet, we’ve just refocused ourselves and I’ve tried harder. I’m going to the shop every day and try to help Randy. He’s covered up. But we’re doing the best we can and we haven’t had any engine trouble which is great for us. I think that’s all fixed now. Our engine department works harder than anybody I think to make more power and reliability for us, and there some isolated incidences that kind of compiled on us and made our program look like it was insufficient but I don’t believe it is. I think going forward all the Roush cars are going to be competitive."

KURT BUSCH Press Conference

KURT BUSCH – No. 97 Rubbermaid Taurus – "It’s a wonderful feeling and a great template to go by. Being able to come here to Bristol and get off to a great start. We’ve been so close so many times this year, it’s somewhat bittersweet, but I knew we’d eventually piece things together and make sure that our car was competitive at the end of a run, and that’s how we got beat at Rockingham and Darlington. And so we worked on it today and I’m real proud of the way the group pulled together. We were really loose early on just because of our effort, and make sure the car was good on the long run. So I’m real happy that we ended up making the right decision because we were the quickest in Happy Hour but the car would wear out too quickly. So Jimmy Fennig and I looked at things, the crew gave me great stops. I feel fortunate in a way that we’re lucky with our special paint scheme cars. To bring this silver Sharpie to victory lane and just like last year, we had a million dollar offer to give away from Sharpie. So the Rubbermaid people might be fighting back a little bit and try to get into victory lane more because Sharpie ends up with all the press. But it’s just wonderful, the whole Newell Rubbermaid Corp. and the way that our Ford is strong each week. And to have a Roush one, too, that hasn’t been done in a while, so I’m real proud for the whole group effort."

THERE WERE MANY ROUSH CARS UP FRONT. "It’s things where you’re trying as hard as you can each and every week and of course you’re going to go through some bad times and if we can piece together more good times, obviously we’re happy with where we’re at right now. And where we’re headed is a direction that I think is positive and to just get that Ford to victory lane each week is the objective. Each crew member within the team, the pit crew chief, I think, takes care of all the crew guys on pit road and the way the five drivers now with Greg Biffle, are able to communicate with the crew chiefs, the way that Jack has his hand into things, it’s a nice fine balance and I’m very happy to be working with the organization I’m working for."

WERE YOU CLOSE TO PITTING UNDER GREEN WHEN THE CAUTION CAME? "We actually cut that closer than you think. I was told to pit two laps before and I saw debris in turn two and I took it upon myself to stay out on the race track. The spotter said that there’s debris and then he radioed that there was a caution out. And so Jimmy Fennig can’t quite see things sometimes when he’s sitting on his pit box on pit road, he just sees the computer, our tire wear and where our lap times are headed. And so it takes that team effort, it takes a guy that can see things on top of the spotter’s stand. And sometimes it takes just that gut instinct behind the wheel to know when to stay out. And so that was a great turning point, that whole green flag session, where we came from 18th to the lead. And that put a lot of good cars up front and that took some cars and put them a lap down. And so I’m glad we came out on top of that. We were good enough in that section, proud of the team the way we did that and we were lucky that the yellow did come out when it did come out."

HOW TOUGH WAS IT TO STAY OUT OF TROUBLE AFTER YOU WENT TO THE BACK? "There’s too many cars in one place at one time, actually. Tony Stewart got into Bobby Labonte, I checked up, Kenseth got into me. So teammates took one another out, but at that point in the race, we were a loose race car. We couldn’t quite compete like we needed to, and you never want to sacrifice too much track position to work on your car at Bristol. And at that point, you might as well work on it because you’re the last car on the lead lap now. I wouldn’t call it a blessing in disguise, but we ended up falling back and now we took our time on pit road to work on the car, we got it tight enough, we put a lot of wedge in it, and that kept the left rear planted and we were able to come up through, we passed a bunch of cars, and Bobby Labonte was right there with us. He came right up through. Where he got passed by my teammate Matt Kenseth at the end, but that was a good turning point for us in the race, the way that that long green flag went and eliminated some of the cars that were slower."

COULD YOU HAVE HANDLED THE 24 AND THE 7 HAD THEY BEEN ABLE TO STAY OUT AND STAY ON THE LEAD LAP? "There were cars yesterday in Happy Hour that we focused on and that we knew was going to be strong. The 24 was one of them, the 7 was another. The 17 seemed to be the best on the chart, and it’s real solidifying now to look back and know we thought the 17 was going to be the car to beat today, and he ended up finishing in second place. It’s a thing where the caution came out at a timely manner for us, not in a timely manner for them, but our car was good enough to maintain lap time out on the race track, so therefore we didn’t need a short pit, we could stay out longer and we could maintain lap time, so we weren’t forced into a position to pit. And we got lucky that the yellow came out, but yet we were good enough to be in that position."

THIS COMPLETES QUITE A YEAR FOR YOU. HAVE YOU HAD TIME TO GET YOUR MIND AROUND MUCH THINGS HAVE CHANGED FOR YOU? "It’s a unique thing that has happened in the process of building the 97 program up to where it is today. John Deere left the organization just after making the call to have me come over and race in the 97 car. And so we started the 2001 season without a sponsor. Geoff Smith and the group were able to find great people at Newell Rubbermaid that have ideas and they’ve built a lot around our racing program that they structure within their advertising campaign. And so we’ve got the sponsor now. And then we worked and showed progress through my rookie year. I worked with a few different crew chiefs and Jack believed in me. We showed we could sit on the pole at Darlington. We almost won the fall Martinsville race and fall Rockingham race my rookie year, we just came up shy. And then to start the season off in 2002 with the veteran crew chief, it was just a slap upside the head of, wow, this is how our car’s supposed to handle. This is how the communication is supposed to be between all crew members. So you can just see the step ladder that the 97 program took, and now I think it’s in a competitive position to compete for the championship, and that’s what Jack Roush saw when he invited me to the program, and that’s what Geoff Smith believes within the Newell Rubbermaid group. And now this is a solidifying win to back up what we did a year ago to get into victory lane our first time. Each week there’s new reasons why I pressure the car as hard as I do. And to finish second three times, I think that was more motivation than any this week, but again back up and defend a title, I’ve never been able to defend a race before and that was a unique feeling this weekend. And so we just want to continue to move forward."

AFTER THE RACE, MATT SAID THAT YOU AND GREG HAD THE MOST NATURAL TALENT OF ANYONE’S HE’S EVER SEEN. WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE BIGGEST THING YOU BRING TO THIS TEAM? "Greg Biffle is a talent and I think when he gets things figured out with Randy Goss and they have cars built that are a secure stable, where he can have a competitive car at Texas, and, boom, can have something at Talladega to win, they’re going to be a force to reckon with. I think the thing that I bring to the team is where I learned right away at Roush Racing in my first professional organization to work with was being a team leader and being a communicator between the crew members, and of course the car chiefs and of course the crew chiefs and just being a team player all around to anybody that was involved. If I saw somebody that was lacking a department, I’ve now learned the way to go about handling a situation with management and influencing people to work harder and work differently. I think that is something that I learned from Jeff Burton as well. Mark Martin’s got that sheer determination to just drive the wheels off these cars, and then Matt Kenseth has unique setups and is the smoothest character that we have within our group. And I see a balance between all of us drivers on where we can better one another by racing and competing against one another because we know one another as individuals."

YOUR PEERS HAVE SAID YOU DRIVE A CAR AS HARD ANYBODY WHO’S EVER BEEN OUT HERE. DALE JARRETT SAID THAT, AND HE RACED AGAINST CALE YARBOROUGH. DO YOU THINK YOU COULD EVER BRING YOURSELF TO POINTS RACE? "I think it’s more exciting than last weekend. I still remember everything about that race, and the way that I approached it and the way I applied each lap and the way that I fought the car because of no power steering. There’s times that you have to race your car and there’s times that you have to follow and to understand what you’re car is doing to make sure that you can win races. There’s been times where I’ve stepped over the boundary of the car’s limits and wrecked the race car. I think the first race I ever had here at Bristol I made 50, 60 laps because I wrecked coming out of turn two. So there’s lesson that I learn each and every week and there’s crew members that help me with different things that they see, and I think keeping an open mind and yet keeping a professional demeanor towards what I have to do as a driver is going to help me move forward and maintain focus on winning a championship or competing for a championship."

BECAUSE OF YOUR CONSISTENCY SINCE LAST YEAR, HOW OPTIMISTIC ARE YOU ABOUT A POSSIBLE CHAMPIONSHIP? "We were very optimistic when the season ended last year, coming on strong and finishing off a season where we did have setback in the month of August. To be 12th in points and to apply pressure each week, and, yeah, we stepped out of line hear or there, but we ended up with a great finish and to continue that this year with the new downforce changes and being able to move forward it’s just a testament to the technology we have and the group that we have to work with. I’m just real proud of my Rubbermaid team each and every week. It’s anew challenge, it’s something that’s on the horizon for us. It’s just a matter of not letting it get out of perspective and for us to understand what’s important each week."

A COUPLE OF TIMES YOU WERE CLOSE TO JIMMY SPENCER. WERE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT THAT OR DID YOU FEEL THAT HE PAID YOU BACK AT INDIANAPOLIS? "No real big issue on the track today, just we were able to move by him when we needed to. I gave him a spot when he was quicker than us. I was real happy when things came to a close at Watkins Glen, when he went home and missed the show at Watkins Glen. Indianapolis was a tough thing, I put myself in position to wreck and he wrecked me, and he missed the show at Watkins Glen, so I put a period on the end of the whole incident there."

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