Budweiser Shootout - Ford Post-Race Quotes

GEOFFREY BODINE - No. 11 Hooters Taurus (Finished 19th) - "I had a vibration in practice. We changed a lot. It might have been the drive line or something, plus something was smoking so we had two problems. The main one was the vibration and it happened right from the start. We had it the other night and hoped we had found it, but I guess we didn't. Something must be bent in the transmission or drive shaft because there was a definite vibration."

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DEWALT Power Tools Taurus (Finished 3rd) - "That was pretty scary for the longest time. It was good racing, though. Luckily, there was no wreck but it was hard racing and it was a great first day for our DEWALT Million Dollar Challenge car. Me and Jimmie Johnson worked real good together. We both got behind a little bit on our pit stop, but we worked together and got all the way back up through there and got a top five out of it." DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING FOR NEXT WEEK? "I don't really know because they are two different cars. I hope so. We're gonna try to put this setup in our 500 car after we qualify tomorrow and see what it looks like on Monday." YOU WERE 10TH WITH FIVE LAPS TO GO. HOW DID YOU GET TO THIRD? "We went up high, Jimmie Johnson and I mainly, and I got behind Kenny Schrader. I got pushing him and Jimmie got pushing me and the three of us stuck together for something like seven, eight or nine laps and that got us up to where we needed to be. Ward Burton gave me a final push to get me the last three spots." THAT WAS QUITE A MOVE GOING THREE WIDE? "Yeah, it was kind of nuts. Jimmie and I got together after we came out of the pits. We were behind, but we got going and caught the whole pack. I said to my spotter to tell him to follow me and we'll make some holes. They were running the bottom groove and the middle groove, so there was really only one place to go. I went up there and Jimmie went up there. Schrader saw me coming and it reminded me of 2000 when me and Schrader ran way up there, but Schrader pulled up in front of me so us three passed about 10 cars the last five laps by working together."

MARK MARTIN - No. 6 Viagra Taurus (Finished 17th) - YOU TOOK FUEL ONLY ON THE PIT STOP. "We were going for first or last. We felt like our only shot for first place was to do that, so we took our shot. Whether we ran sixth, eighth or 10th, it didn't really matter a whole lot. It's about winning and I think we did a great job. We just didn't have nearly as good of a car as we do for the 500. We only had time to build two cars and we built one real good one and one real bad one. We had to run the real bad one and try to make the most of it. I think it was a great team effort, we just didn't have a car to stay there when we got there."

KURT BUSCH - No. 97 Rubbermaid Taurus (Finished 11th) - "We were real fortunate to make laps up front and get Rubbermaid some good exposure with the new paint scheme. That will boost team morale to get the season off to a good start, but we just didn't have enough at all to hold the guys off at the end." HOW WAS THE CAR? "Overall, it's fair. I wish it could follow closer to other cars. Other people were able to take advantage of me because I can't follow them too closely." WERE YOU SURPRISED TO SEE EVERYBODY COME DOWN PIT ROAD AT ONCE? "No because it was whatever it took for everybody to make their run and with the smaller fuel cells we have a smaller pit window, so when somebody gives the hand signal to pit - which we were the first ones - but Junior was in front of me and already decided to pit. So when the 24 decided to pit, everybody came. It was great to have everybody on pit road at once. It was good excitement."

TODD BODINE - No. 54 Army National Guard Taurus (Finished 13th) - "It definitely typical Daytona still - you've got to handle. We were handling pretty good, not great but pretty good. I wasn't having to lift and that's pretty good on old tires. We had a shot to get a top five and Dale, Jr. went in the middle off of two and went three-wide on us and got loose. The back end of his car came up and got our left-front fender and after that it wouldn't draft good at all. It was too tight, but we had a good car. We had a lot of fun. Nobody wrecked and nobody got hurt and there were a lot of chances for that because everybody was slipping and sliding and getting sideways. Everybody did a good job."

RICKY RUDD - No. 21 Motorcraft Taurus (Finished 8th) - "We learned a little bit. We ran that first segment and weren't real good. We just laid back and I think we finished 14th in that first segment. We came in and made some adjustments and then we came on. I don't think we could have won it, but we could have run third, fourth or fifth. We ended up getting bounced back and came back to eighth, but it was interesting." WHAT ABOUT THE NEW FORMAT? "I don't really know what the first 20 laps is for, I haven't quite figured that out, but I'm glad because it gave us a little time to adjust. Maybe that's what it was for because we weren't very good. We were OK, but we were fading back hard, so they made some chassis changes and it fixed the car. We were pretty good that last segment. Something happened to Rusty. I don't know what happened, but he changed like three lanes on the backstretch. I don't know if somebody hit him or what, but he just made a right-hand turn and hit me in the left-front tire. I thought it popped the tire. I slowed up a minute and went to the back and then came back through there." HE'S GOT A GOOD DENT IN THE SIDE. "He was like way down in the middle of the race track and I was on the outside and then he changed like three lanes and came up and just drove into me. But something had to have happen because the angle at which he hit me was pretty severe. I thought it popped the left-front tire."

MATT KENSETH PRESS CONFERENCE - DID YOU THINK JUNIOR WAS THE MAN TO BEAT? "I felt his car was about the same as it's been the last three years - it's been about half-a-second faster than us. He was pretty strong. I knew that right away. It's the best DEWALT car we've ever had since I've been at Roush at a speedway by far. We were fairly competitive and I was happy with that, but when Junior wanted to go he could really go. There was one time there were three of us on the bottom and he just went by us on the outside by himself. He was pretty stout again. They've got something figured out. They do their homework and now we've got to work a little harder to get caught up to them." WHAT ABOUT THE FORMAT AND RUNNING THE RACE AT NIGHT? "I thought it was exciting. It's always nice to have the break to work on the little things they do let us work on. We can make a few changes and work on our car a little bit, but I thought it was exciting. I thought being at night the track had a lot of grip and all three lanes were pretty fast. That made for some pretty intense racing for us, but it probably made for a good show for the fans." CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE BATTLE DOWN THE STRETCH? "What really happened there was Jimmie Johnson and I didn't get out of the pits very good. We were so far behind the pack and, amazingly enough, the two of us could run eight-tenths of a second faster than the field, so it was kind of cool. When we caught the field, we were catching 'em so fast that you could just kind of scan and pick a hole. We had so much momentum, I bet you we got by four rows of cars in two laps because we had so much momentum coming from behind. Jimmie started pushing me and there was nowhere to run except way up against the wall, so we just went up to the third groove against the wall and got hooked up with Schrader. It was pretty exciting. I hit Schrader as hard as I could hit him and then as soon as I was done hitting him, Jimmie would hit me as hard as he could hit me. We kept pushing each other up there and then I think with two to go, Jimmie hung a left and went in the middle three-wide under me. It was just me and Schrader and we couldn't make very good headway. I think Ward got behind me and gave me a push and I got outside of Schrader. I just barely squeezed outside of him and made a run through three and four of the last lap to pick up the last couple of spots." WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE AERO PACKAGE? "If we're just talking about Daytona and not the rest of the year because we haven't run any open races, I think for Daytona the good thing about it is I think it's taken away 95 percent of the cheating. It used to be that everybody would roll their spoilers down as much as they could and everybody would cheat the templates as much as they could, so the cars are still as even as they were before, but now you know everybody is legal. You don't have to worry about trying to cheat all the little things as much as you can. They've got a lot of templates and did a lot of teching, so you go out there and feel pretty good that everybody is on an even playing field even more so than before."

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