Pepsi 400 - Rookie Post-Race Quotes

GREG BIFFLE IN THE GRAINGER FORD WON HIS FIRST CAREER WINSTON CUP RACE IN THE PEPSI 400. THE VICTORY CAME IN HIS 23RD CAREER WINSTON CUP START. THE WIN WAS HIS SECOND TOP-FIVE AND SECOND TOP-10 OF THE 2003 SEASON. BIFFLE UNOFFICIALLY TOOK THE LEAD IN THE RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE STANDINGS BY SIX POINTS OVER JAMIE MCMURRAY (186-180) AND TOOK RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE OF THE RACE HONORS FOR THE SEVENTH TIME IN 2003, THE MOST OF ANY FIRST YEAR DRIVER.

OTHER NOTES ABOUT BIFFLE'S WIN: A Raybestos® Rookie Contender has now won at least one race every season since 1999, dating back to Tony Stewart's win at Richmond in September, 1999. Other freshman drivers to win: Earnhardt Jr. (Richmond, 2000), Matt Kenseth (Charlotte, 2000), Harvick (Atlanta, 2001), Newman (New Hampshire 2002), and Johnson (Charlotte and both 2002 Dover races). The record for most wins by a Raybestos® Rookie is held by Stewart, who won three races in 1999.

GREG BIFFLE, NO. 16 GRAINGER FORD:

"I tell you what, it feels really good. I learned a lot from Dale Earnhardt Jr. and all those guys up there. They've taught me a lot. It's awesome with all the fans down here in Daytona. It's real exciting to be here in victory lane here in Daytona. Without the help of Matt Kenseth there is no way we would be here tonight. He sacrificed a lot to get me here. I owe the whole win to him and I thank him a bunch. TALK ABOUT RANDY GOSS' PIT STRATEGY. "I saw some guys that looked like they were going to stop. He said it looked like it was going to be close. Right before it went back to green I saw a bunch of guys coming so I let him know and he said come if everybody comes and we did and it really paid off for us. I wasn't sure what was going on, why they were stopping with 16 laps before us but I realize know what had happened. It really paid off for us tonight." YOU HAD A TOUGH BATTLE WITH BOBBY LABONTE AND MICHAEL WALTRIP. "I figured that Bobby Labonte would get me there at the end. He's got a lot of experience at these superspeedways. This is my first year as a Raybestos® Rookie in these cars and this thing was really loose and pushing on the bottom. He didn't have anybody to help him and if Matt Kenseth could have stayed up there definitely Bobby would have got me."

LARRY FOYT, NO. 14 HARRAH'S DODGE:

"On the first stop, I slid through and that hurt us but I got lucky and caught that caution and got back in the draft and the car was really drafting good, I think we got up to about 23rd. In the second round of pit stops, we just weren't fast enough to keep up with the draft and once you loose that draft you are in trouble. And we ended up losing a cylinder with about 10 to go so we just parked it. It was a long day but at least we have the car in one piece. A lot of guys tore their stuff up tonight. It's a good race car so we should be good at Talladega."

JACK SPRAGUE, NO. 0 NETZERO PONTIAC:

"We had a decent car tonight. We struggled with the NetZero Pontiac in practice and Tony Furr and the guys put their heads together to come up with something good for the race and it worked. We were a little tight but it wasn't bad. Somehow we got behind after a pit stop and pretty much lost the draft. I don't know what happened but I know we lost our drafting partners and after that all we could do was ride around pretty much by ourselves. It's unfortunate because we had a good car."

SELECTED BIFFLE POST RACE COMMENTS:

"It's unbelievable. I tell you what, our team has struggled a little bit this season, extremely lately. We've worked harder than we have ever worked trying to get our racecars going like they need to be. It just shows how hard these guys work and how they don't give up. We've had some extra help at the shop from Harry and we switched some guys around on the team. It's just exciting to be in victory lane at Daytona. I never in the world thought we'd win a race here but our car handled really good tonight. It ran well up there with the DEI cars and it ran well up front by itself." WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO DO IN THE CLOSING LAPS OF THE RACE? 'I wouldn't have won tonight if it wasn't for Matt Kenseth and what he did for me. He went with me down the backstretch and it cost him a position and he gave up second place. Matt probably could have won tonight if he had just stayed in the outside groove but he moved down with me and pushed me up there and then fell off of the lead draft to not give the 18 any help to get by me. It's a team effort. Obviously tonight, Matt Kenseth, I can't say enough about him getting me my first Winston Cup win here at Daytona." YOUR THOUGHT WHEN LABONTE RAN OUT OF GAS ON THE LAST LAP. "I was so focused on trying not to let anybody get any advantage on me. I haven't been restrictor plate racing that long and especially for a win, I really didn't know what to do. I was breathing the throttle and stepping on the brake pedal a little bit down the straightaway trying to keep Bobby too far back there and getting a run on me and giving me some room to get a run on the two guys ahead of me so Bobby wouldn't get his nose up under me and get me loose because I was pretty loose. I had to keep my car like that to keep it turning good tonight. Joel Edmonds is my spotter and does a fantastic job. He told me when I went into turn one 'The 18 is fading, the 18 ran out of gas.'"

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

DO YOU FEEL LIKE THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD IS OFF YOUR SHOULDERS? "Well, a little bit. I've worked for Jack Roush for 11 years and he come up to me tonight and he says 'Goss, you need to take tomorrow off. Monday you better get back after it.' That's the way Jack is. He is so competitive and he always has to carry it out in front of you. The Grainger guys and the Grainger team really needed, not even a win, but just a good run. We would have been happy with something to build on, a good run, and this is something to build on. A lot of my guys have been working seven days a week trying to raise our level of cars and stuff. This is the car that Robbie Reiser gave us for Daytona (500). We ran Daytona and ran pretty good. It's the one that was all tore up at Talladega and run pretty good. My body hanger fixed it. It wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be drafting. It was pretty good yesterday drafting. We taped up a little too much and we were over heating so we had to keep breathing it. We just couldn't move through the pack. I ran him out of gas at Sears Point and when the window came, my engineer Dave Winston said 'If we top off now we will make it in one more stop.' Well, what are the chances of it going green one more stop? So we shot our last bullet and it worked out for us. It was beautiful. It's a great team effort. Really, my engineer was making the car for me on the fuel mileage. I'm just proud of everybody." IT HAS TO BE EXRA SPECIAL TO WIN AFTER SUCH A FRUSTRATING DAY LAST WEEK. "It's getting our confidence back. We were starting to loose confidence in each other. You make one bad call and everybody remembers it. You can make a bunch of good ones and they don't remember it. We struggled at Sears Point. Greg drove really good. We got up all the way up to 10th and we had some other issues going on there. I'm just real proud of the Grainger crew." HOW DID YOU GET IN POSITION TO GET THE LEAD AT THE END OF THE RACE? "I guess I had lost track of when the other guys hadn't stopped and when they started coming it was like 'Holy cow, they can't make it' so they were out of gas. That started the ball rolling. It's like "Man, they came under green and now they can't make it' and we had that one stop strategy where we had to get. It just worked out good for us." HOW CLOSE WERE YOU ON FUEL AT THE END? "I didn't even check to see how much it got but I think it should have been okay. IS FUEL MILEAGE SOMETHING THAT YOU GUYS REALLY WORK ON? "Jack has always worked on it with his engine stuff and NASCAR is policing the rules so good. He and the guys work on the fuel mileage with the carburetion stuff up in Lavonia (Michigan). The fuel cell that NASCAR has got is so narrowed down that everybody has got the same size fuel cell. It's just cutting it that close." DID YOU THINK BEFORE THE YEAR STARTED THAT THE TEAM WOULD HAVE SO MANY HIGHS AND LOWS THIS SEASON? "No I didn't. I told Benny Parsons earlier today 'You know Benny, I've always been a humble guy. I've raced motorcycles since I was 14 and won a lot of races and championships and considered myself a humble guy, but until you come and experience Winston Cup you don't know what humble is. Some of the guys, Jimmy Fennig and Robbie Reiser they've seen me come from the Trucks and the Busch deal. They knew what I was getting into but you know how that is. Sometimes you just have to learn it for yourself. It's just like your kids. Until you get in there and have to struggle and really, halfway though the season, to most people that's not struggling. I'm just really proud of the Grainger guys." WHAT CAN THIS TEAM ACCOMPLISH DURING THE REMAINDER OF THE SEASON? "After tonight, like Jack said, take tomorrow off Goss because Monday you'd better get up on the wheel. If you look at it, we're behind and I can't pick cars. I sometimes don't have the right cars for the right tracks, mile-and- a-half track, short track. We don't have enough stuff that we feel like is in the right spot to pick cars for him. Where Jimmy Fenning knows what he wants and knows what he is getting for Kurt Busch, I can't get there yet. So we're working really hard at getting more cars, maybe taking them and running them against each other and letting Greg pick them. That's harder to do than most people realize. You've got to get after it." HOW BIG OF A BOOST DOES THIS GIVE YOUR TEAM ENTERING THIS LONG STRETCH OF RACES? "I think it's big. I've got some guys on my team that's been through it. I've never been though it. I've been through 36 weeks of bike racing and stuff like that but I've never been through this grind where you can test two days a week and if you want to go to Kentucky you can test all the way up until it's time to leave. The big thing is getting your stuff done at the shop. The sport has turned into where the road guys just need to be the road guys. That's what it's turned into. You need to unload a car that could win and those guys need to work on it and we just haven't been able to get there yet."

Unofficial Raybestos Rookie standings: Biffle 186
McMurray 180
Mears 156
Sprague 150
Raines 135
Foyt 85
Fukuyama 17

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