Food City 500 - Rookie Post-Race Quotes

CASEY MEARS, NO. 41 TARGET DODGE:

"It looked like someone crashed in front of us. I don't know what happened. I was just going through the gears taking my time and it looked like somebody up front may have missed a shift or somebody may have got into somebody else. I never even knew there was a crash until I hit John (Andretti). It's hard to say. I never saw anything, never heard anything. I was just going through the gears and before I knew it John just stopped and I got into the back of him."

TONY RAINES, NO. 74 BACE MOTORSPORTS CHEVROLET:

"We blew an engine. It didn't seem to give any warning, just something in the bottom end; as Ken Schrader once said, something really important. The car wasn't too bad. I was having fun. We were riding around there in the pack with a good group of cars and, typical Bristol, they were crashing left and right and we hadn't gotten in one of them yet so maybe we would have come out with a good finish. We'll never know. We learned a lot this weekend and we'll put it to use in the fall. We brought our worse car here so if we tore it up a little bit it wouldn't have hurt my feelings. What's discouraging is we're running better than where we're at finishing and where we're at in the points. We're just going to have to put it together, run well and finish well and it will help the points."

GREG BIFFLE IN NO. 16 GRAINGER FORD WAS THE RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE OF THE RACE AT BRISTOL. BIFFLE FINISHED FIFTH, HIS BEST CAREER NASCAR WINSTON CUP FINISH IN 15 CAREER STARTS. HE TOOK TOP FINISHING RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE HONORS FOR THE THIRD CONSECUTIVE RACE, DATING BACK TO THE BASS PRO SHOPS MBNA 500 AT ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY. BRISTOL MARKS THE THIRD CONSECUTIVE RACE WHERE HE HAS BEEN BOTH THE TOP QUALIFYING AND HIGHEST FINISHING RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE. BIFFLE JOINS JAMIE MCMURRAY AS THE ONLY RAYBESTOS® ROOKIES TO SCORE A TOP-FIVE FINISH THIS SEASON.

UNOFFICIALLY, BIFFLE CLIMBS TO SECOND PLACE IN THE RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE POINT STANDINGS, ONE POINT BEHIND MCMURRAY (61-60).

"I've got to thank these guys. We got the nose knocked in here and that's what happens when you are racing Bristol. 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 has done a good job here since we missed that race in Las Vegas. We've come a long ways. I'm pretty happy about all the progress we've made since then."

WHAT DOES THIS GOOD FINISH MEAN FOR YOUR GROWING TEAM? "It means a lot for us. We weren't as good as we needed to be. Obviously the front of the car was hurting the aerodynamics of it. We were running hot. I feel that if we could have gotten track position we might have been able to be as good as the leader was the 17 car (Matt Kenseth). We were definitely catching them at the end of that run. We were the fastest car on the racetrack but that's what happens. We had to stop one time because I knocked the grill in on a restart.

HOW BIG OF A FACTOR WAS THE OVERHEATING PROBLEM? "That was a huge factor. We had to keep coming down pit road and keep trying to get water in it and get it cool enough. It kind of sucked that we had to do that but I can't complain about a top-five."

DID YOU EVER THINK THAT YOU MIGHT NOT MAKE IT TO THE END OF THE RACE? "The temperature was continuing to go. It got to 260 and we were able to come down pit road and take some tape off it and put some water in it and then we were okay."

"We had to pit every time because we had the grill knocked in so that really hurt us. We had to go to the end of the longest line for speeding on pit road, just all kinds of things kept happening to us. I just drove my butt off today and kept my nose clean. I don't have any marks on the car except for the grill where it got knocked in on a restart where we got a big brake check. I'm pretty excited about that. No scratches on the car coming out of here, that's pretty good."

HOW TOUGH WAS 500 LAPS HERE? "I'm not even as tired as I was at Darlington. At Darlington I was wore out when I finished 12th and here I'm ready to go another 500. It's pretty incredible. I've been working out as much as I can. I've been running a lot because I know that we are coming into the heat of the season and these 500 lap races. I'm holding up pretty good."

IS THE POINTS RACE AND THIS SEASON STILL WIDE OPEN? "Absolutely, it's wide open. It's unfortunate for us that we missed that race in Las Vegas. We would be in the top-10 in points, probably with a 13th, 12th, and a fifth place run. We would have climbed up in the points. We're still trying to overcome it."

HOW DID YOU SURVIVE ALL DAY? "There were some seriously close calls out there, on the apron trying to avoid accidents. My spotter Joel did an awesome job. He does a great job for me and tells me where the wreck's at and we come clear from behind. He is an important part of our program and we are lucky to have him."

"We are really excited about our program right now. It's come a long ways from missing the race in Las Vegas. The guys are doing the best job they can getting the Grainger Ford working good. Here is not an aerodynamic track, obviously with the nose knocked in on my car I had to come down pit road a bunch and get it worked on. I'm thinking about our troops overseas doing what they're doing and we are able to come here and do this kind of thing is pretty awesome."

ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO TEXAS? "Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. We're taking our Atlanta car. It's the first car that we are repeating on. We've got to take it to the wind tunnel and hopefully make it better and we are excited for Texas."

DONNIE WINGO, CREW CHIEF, NO. 42 HAVOLINE DODGE:

"It turned out okay but you hate to see it tore up like that. We kind of played the strategy there and stayed out that one time when a lot of people had to pit. We got a good long run and actually that was when the car was the best. All that worked out pretty good and got a lot of cars in the same lap with us and we were able to salvage a decent finish out of it."

DID THE CAUTION IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RACE THAT PUT A LOT OF GUYS A LAP DOWN HURT OR HELP YOU? "That helped us a lot because some guys it actually put two laps down. That helped us a lot but I hate coming up here and you get wrecked but that's really the only way that you can pass anybody. We're sitting there riding along behind a lapped car or whatever. We weren't beating on him but the guy behind us started beating on us and wrecked us so that's the way it goes, I guess."

YOU HAD A BAD DAY BUT THEN IT TURNED INTO A GOOD DAY. DOES THAT GIVE YOUR TEAM SOME MOMENTUM? "Any decent finish that you can salvage after wrecking and you tore the car up or whatever you've got to say is a pretty good day. We're not here to just ride around. We want to run good. And we were running decent at the time. We were in the top-10 at that point but as it turned out we would up just one shy of that at the end."

WERE YOU SURPRISED HOW WELL YOU RAN IN THE RACE TODAY? "Not really. The car has been really good all week. We had that little mishap before qualifying but we bounced right back. We took a car and qualified 26th or whatever and he hadn't been on the racetrack with it. All in all I guess it was a pretty good week except we got two tore up cars."

RANDY GOSS, CREW CHIEF, NO. 16 GRAINGER FORD:

"The team needed a shot in the arm. We've been a lap down so far every time this year so it's good for us. There wasn't much rallying (after the Las Vegas race). We were behind at the shop and we've been working seven days a week, most of us, trying to build this team. We went home with our tails between our legs and just went to work on Monday and just worked harder."

HOW BIG OF A BULLET DID YOU DODGE WITH THE OVERHEATING PROBLEM? "Once you knock that nose in it's just overheating. Of course, we're trying to be safe and not burn it down trying to finish. Once we got trapped on the lead lap then we were in good shape."

DID YOU COME CLOSE TO RUNNING TOO HOT? "We were 250. If you seen us putting water in, it was shooting steam out."

HOW BIG OF A BUILDING BLOCK IS THIS FOR YOUR TEAM? "I think it's big for Greg, just to get up there and run with the guys and see if we can stay on the lead lap and see that we can compete and from where we started to try and rub on our team some and maybe fine tune it a little bit more. I think it's going to be big for his confidence, as well as the team's.

JACK SPRAGUE, NO. 0 NETZERO PONTIAC:

"The first 20 laps the NetZero Pontiac was pretty good. I don't know what happened after that, but all of a sudden the car got the worst vibration I've ever had. I couldn't even see straight. Right before the wreck the car was acting funny, like I had four equalized tires or something. I was thinking of going into the pits, but before I could do that, we spun. The car wasn't too bad after we fixed it though. It seemed like we ran faster than we had before the accident."

SELECTED BIFFLE POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES

"It was frustrating from the driver's seat, all the things that are going on and you keep getting put back and keep having to come into the pits and get put back. You think that you have a pretty good car. But I kept my cool and just worked my way up. There at the end, with about 30 laps to go, it was too bad because I was the fastest car on the track. I was catching the 17. It was pretty unfortunate for us. Our car didn't go at all after that last caution. I don't know what happened but there at the end it started going again. The 21 and 40 came and got tires and I thought for sure that they would get me. I don't know what to the 40; he must have got caught up in traffic." IN THE LATE STAGES OF THE RACE, YOU AND RICKY RUDD GOT TOGETHER. WERE YOU WORRIED ABOUT RUDD RETURNING THE FAVOR AFTER HE PUT ON A FRESH SET OF TIRES LATE IN THE RACE? "I was thinking about that. Ricky is a great racecar driver and a lot of times things like that aren't on purpose. I just touched him on his rear bumper there and just barely got him sideways here but he was already sideways before I touched him and that's the Bristol thing. The guy is sideways already before you hit him. In fact, on pit road he said 'I don't even know if you touched me or not.' I hit the brakes and I don't think that he even felt it. That's what happens when you get sideways off here and you have to lift on the throttle so fast that the guy behind you runs into you and wrecks you. Sometimes it's not as obvious as it looks, like I saw him pretty sideways there. He knew he was sideways and got out of the throttle and that happened. Certainly I didn't get into him very hard and he was able to gather it back up, no problem. That's the most important thing: once you bump him, have enough respect to get out of the throttle and loose some track position to let the guy get it back together again and not run into him like we saw yesterday. I saw a couple of guys give them the first bump and then clean them out. He is a good driver and I learned a lot. I'm a rookie in this series running for Raybestos® Rookie of the Year and I learned so much following Rusty Wallace yesterday in 'Happy Hour.' I saw Kurt Busch and I was able to see some of the guys today, Sterling Marlin and some of the other guys, where they run around here. I talked to Jeff Gordon and some other guys about how much do you use the brakes and found out the whole time I ran the Busch car here and with this Cup car that I was using too much brake entering the corner. 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 has got to driver a little bit different. We had a great car and we're looking forward to going to Texas."

The unofficial Raybestos Rookie points after Bristol:

1. Jamie McMurray 61
2. Greg Biffle 60
3. Casey Mears 56
4. Jack Sprague 50
5. Tony Raines 45
6. Larry Foyt 30
7. Hideo Fukuyama 7

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