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GFS Marketplace 400 - Rookie Post-Race Quotes
"I don't know. I guess a tire blew out or something. We just got really
tight there about the third or fourth lap and we were really thinking that we
were going to start out loose. I didn't really know, I thought I had a
left-front going down. I went down into turn three and the right front blew out, I
guess. I'm not really sure what happened. I'll have to look at the tape but it
felt like a tire blew out."
"I'm fine. The 32 (Ricky Craven) just got out of shape. I tried to go low
but I couldn't go low. I was turning as hard as I could and I was going to run
right into the back of him so I had to try to go high. About that time he
had kind of got a hold of it and tried to go high to get out of everybody's way
and I hit him. I don't know. If it isn't one thing it's another. We've just
got to have a clean race, that's all we need. We need one clean race to kind
of show what we can do. We were going back and forth on the setup there. We
were real tight at the beginning, got real loose after the first pit stop,
fixed it and looked like we were going to be pretty good. We just needed to get
some track position and the 32 messed up and we ended up getting caught in
it."
"I've got to be excited. The guys gave me a great car here. This is the car
that we ran at Indy and didn't have a lot of success with it. We brought it
here to Michigan and it run great today. I just can't say enough about the
guys and how hard they are working to get us good racecars so we could run good.
The Grainger car was real consistent, good pit stops, good pit decisions.
You've got to be happy with a top-five finish. I feel like we've been
struggling with our cars and this is the car that we run at Indy and couldn't get it
to handle at all. We bring it here and it runs great. The Grainger guys are
working hard, I've got to give them 110 percent. They are working harder than
any team in this garage area for us to run better and it's paying off.
Everybody has got their head down digging and nobody is giving up. It was a real
easy car to drive today. I didn't want to get it too free, a little bit tight
all day. I thought I could catch the 48 and 29 there but you've got to be
excited about that." HOW HARD WAS IT TO CONSERVE FUEL AT THE END OF THE RACE? "I
didn't have to conserve any. They said we were good to go so we must have
been getting good mileage. I didn't have to conserve any. I was trying to
catch the 20. The 20 was a little better than me. I didn't want to mess with him
long. I just let him go. I needed to get a top-five finish and we weren't
going to hold him off for eight, ten more laps." IT SEEMS LIKE YOUR TEAM IS
GETTING CONSISTENTLY BETTER EACH WEEK. "It seems like it. We've definitely
been working harder and harder, our guys have been. It's starting to pay off.
The Grainger team has picked it up some and we executed our changes a little
bit different this weekend and it really paid off for us." YOU HAVE BEEN
GETTING GREAT FUEL MILEAGE IN RECENT WEEKS. "We must be getting okay mileage, I
mean, we weren't very close. It depends on how your chassis is handling too, how
much throttle off time you have here. I was kind of easing it down into the
corner all day." WERE YOU CONCERNED WHEN KURT BUSCH RAN OUT OF GAS WITH TWO
LAPS TO GO? "I didn't know the 97 ran out. I had no idea that the 97 ran out.
I'd have been concerned if I'd known that he ran out (laughs)."
"It was fair. The car was good on the short run, it would just get really,
really tight at the end of a tire run and we just could not get that out of it.
We could run better than that for
a while but it just wouldn't stay with us. We'll have to work on that part
of it." WERE YOU CONCERNED WITH FUEL MILEAGE AT THE END OF THE RACE? "We cut
it pretty close, no doubt about that but it was still running at the end so
all their calculations were correct." ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THE WAY THE CAR DROVE
TODAY? "Not really. It was a decent car we just could never get it adjusted
right or get the tightness out of it. We could get it good for about 25 or 30
laps but that was it. We'll just have to go from there, work on our notes,
and get it better for a long run."
"That was a great finish for the Grainger team and Greg. I'm just proud of
the guys. We've been struggling a little bit. We almost got us a good finish
last week. We were looking for a real morale booster and this really does it
for the team. They performed under pressure in the pits, performed up with
the top-10 guys where we want to be. I'm just really proud of all the Grainger
people, the engine shop and everybody in Lavonia, Michigan, and of course all
our fabricators and especially our body hangers back in Concord. I've been
pretty hard on them this year, asking for different stuff every week. I'd like
to say thanks to everybody that works on this car." GREG SAID THIS WAS THE
SAME CAR THAT RAN AT INDY. WHY DID IT RUN SO WELL TODAY? "The only thing that
I did to this car was I went and talked to Robbie Reiser for a little while
and I can't tell you the rest (smiles)." YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN GOOD IN THE FUEL
MILEAGE RACES. "I've got a really good guy that figures fuel mileage and that's
the key to that. It's a nail-biter anyways, and you are in trouble if you do
good and you are in trouble if you do bad. We ended up having a really good
finish because of fuel mileage and we've thinking "Man, if Kurt beats us, he
went even further that us so we're still in the doghouse.' It was a bad day
for those guys running out of gas. It was a good day for us and I'm just proud
of everybody." WERE YOU CONCERNED WHEN KURT RAN OUT OF GAS WITH TWO LAPS TO
GO? "Not with us, because he stayed out that much longer than us so I thought
we were going to be all right. But in the back of your mind you are always
saying 'Man' because it can changes so much on driver style. And the driver can
only help you so much out there. He's having to drive what he's got, too.
I'm pretty pumped about today." YOU HAVE TO BE HAPPY WITH THE PERFORMANCE OF
THE CAR AND THE TEAM TODAY. "This is where our goal was at the start of the
year to get up in the top-10. Like I told you before it's one thing to talk
about trying to get, I would have said ten at the beginning of the year but to
get in the top-25 in Winston Cup races, something to be proud of your guys and
for
them to run as good as they did today, I'm really pumped about it." YOU ARE
RUNNING BETTER EVERY WEEK. "It seems like it. Our weakness has been the
mile-and-a-half tracks, which, if you had asked me a year ago, it was our strength
because Greg is such a good driver on all that stuff. We've been working on
it, just chipping away, just trying to chip one rock off the mountain at a
time bringing it over to our piles."
Unofficial Top-five Raybestos Rookie points after Michigan
Greg Biffle 228
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