Checker Auto Parts 500 - Ford Post-Race Quotes

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DEWALT Power Tools Taurus (Finished 6th) - "I couldn't be happier. We ran competitively all day. We had a car that maybe couldn't have won, but if we would have been up front, I think we would have been tough to beat. We haven't run as good the last few weeks and it feels good to come out and run competitively and at least have a car that if it was in the right position would have a shot to win. It was real competitive all day, so it feels real good." THERE WERE A LOT OF CAUTIONS. "That was good. The car was good on restarts. We were lucky there at the end because we didn't pit. That was a good call by Robbie. We needed short runs because of having old tires and we got what we needed at the end." HOW FRUSTRATING HAVE THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS BEEN? "It really hasn't been that frustrating. Atlanta could have been much worse. We had problems and still got a good finish out of it, so it really hasn't been that frustrating. Yeah, you want to run up front every week, but this is a very competitive sport and that's tough to do each and every week, so I was happy to come back here and be competitive again. I feel great going to Rockingham. We've had great cars there in the past and I look forward to going there next week and hopefully have a shot to win." WITH TWO RACES LEFT DO YOU GET A SENSE OF WHAT MIGHT BE AHEAD? "Yeah, I'm pretty excited now that we're out of here. We've got two races to go. I don't know where we need to finish to be able to win the thing really. Obviously, the 8 gained a few points on us, but where we need to finish is probably a pretty reasonable number. Unless we break stuff or crash, I think it's real attainable, so I feel good about that. Obviously, it's not over till it's over, but I feel great about where we're at with two races to go." WILL YOU THINK ABOUT THE TITLE MORE? "Kind of. I mean, I'll probably think about it a little bit more this week just because we did get out of here with a good finish and there are only two races to go and we have a real healthy lead. I feel great about it right now. It can never be enough, but I feel good about it. I had a real competitive car today and I owe it all to my team." DOES THIS TAKE MORE PRESSURE OFF? "I think it takes a lot of pressure off. If we would have gotten out of here with a 25th or 30th-place finish and they would have gained a bunch of points on us, that would have put a lot more pressure on us. So this was real good. There is still pressure. There are still two races to go, but it will be a lot easier going to Rockingham and Homestead knowing we don't have to finish quite as high." YOU RACED MICHAEL HARD THERE AT THE END. "I started racing him and ended up getting us farther behind, so I just let him go and I followed him until there were two laps to go. I tried to make a real hard charge at him, but he got such a good run off the corner that I needed all that room to get off the corner. We were gonna wreck if I tried any harder and that was just all I could do."

KURT BUSCH - No. 97 Rubbermaid Taurus (Finished 4th) - IT LOOKED LIKE YOU JUST RAN OUT OF TIME. "Yeah, each week it just seems like we're behind the eight ball and all the bad breaks keep going against us. We felt we had to come in and top off. We didn't think there was gonna be anymore yellows, which there were plenty of. That was this week. Last week, NASCAR penalized us for leading. At Martinsville, we got penalized for leading because of the pit road opening. Our luck is starting to turn around the wrong way, but we're starting to get some finishes and now we need to get some results." IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE YOUR LAST TOP FIVE. "Each week something else is happening and now we're able to overcome it. I enjoy coming out west. This Phoenix mile has been good to me, so it's a good finish and we led some laps." YOU PASSED A TON OF CARS TODAY. "Yeah, it's the same old story - we just can't buy a break. Everything is turning against us, but our results are starting to turn around a little bit."

MARK MARTIN - No. 6 Viagra Taurus (Finished 10th) - "Ben had some great pit strategy and we had a good enough car to stay out like that. The car was awesome on that last long run. If it would have gone green all the way, we would have had a top-five easily because nobody was coming at all. I was real happy with that. Those were pretty old tires, especially the lefts, and it just didn't take back off after the cautions and they just kept picking me off one by one. It was a good enough car to stay where I was at as long as the green stayed out. We probably got some luck because we might have been short on fuel. We were about what we were. We finished 10th and that's about what we were today. We had a crack at a top five if things would have gone our way, but I'm not complaining. I'm real proud of our team and proud of our car. It was more competitive today than we have been."

SHAWN PARKER, Crew Chief - No. 88 UPS Taurus (Dale Jarrett finished 29th) - DALE WAS 8TH ON THE LAST RESTART AND THEN SOMETHING HAPPENED. "We had a right-front tire go down. Dale drove his butt off all day long. The pit crew did an awesome job. We struggled from the time we unloaded on Friday and this shows you that our team does a lot of hard work to keep going. We did four tires, so we didn't gain any track position but having that tire go down is just the way our luck has been going all year long."

JEFF BURTON - No. 99 CITGO Taurus (Finished 8th) - A LOT OF UPS AND DOWNS TODAY. "Yeah, I leave here pretty happy. We were fast. We raced hard and when we weren't good at all, we just kept adjusting and ended up making our car really fast. We just didn't have any good fortune. We cut a tire and had to go to the back. We came in the pits and it shut off and I couldn't get it started, so I had to go to the back. Robby Gordon ran me up in the wall and I had to go to the back. I went to the back three times and finished eighth, so you've got to be happy."

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 Grainger Taurus (Finished 15th) - "My car started out really awesome. I had a chance to win today for sure. I had a car I could win with. I was wrestling my teammate trying to get by him and got in the wall pretty hard coming off turn two. That knocked the rear end over and knocked the front fender in. I'm sure it knocked the camber out of it - the toe - and I just tried to salvage what I could. I tell you what, those guys were in trouble if I wouldn't have hit the wall. My car was really fast. When I got up there with four new tires, I passed the 2 and was catching the 12 and my car was all bent up. I was gonna put a hurting on them, I think. Everybody can wish and everybody can think or hope, but I had a good car today and I screwed it up for everybody. It's unfortunate. I guess everybody makes mistakes and I made one today." IS THIS LIKE A BIG SHORT TRACK? "Yeah, I try to avoid all that. I stayed out of all the bumping and shoving because it doesn't ever pay off for me. You bump a guy out of the way and then he wrecks you on the next lap. I let everybody else do the shoving and pushing and I kept my car pretty clean. I guess we did hit the 88 down here at the end of the straightaway. I don't know what happened. The sun is in our eyes. We're going in the corner and all of a sudden I'm almost turned into the outside wall and we're hitting together. I don't know if I moved up on him or he moved down on me, or when we lifted his car darted to the left. What I think happened is he started in the corner a little earlier than I was gonna start in because I was doing a wide arc in. He may have tried to turn too early and hit me, which ran me up into him. I feel really bad because I was trying to race him clean and certainly didn't mean to get into him."

RICKY RUDD - No. 21 Motorcraft Taurus (Finished 17th) - "On the restart I went down in turn one and they were all jammed up. Everybody went to the top and I just drove to the bottom and passed about four cars. I guess the 17 didn't see me down there and he just pinched me off coming off the corner. He about wrecked both of us. I checked up and he checked up, but we got the worst end of it. That knocked our front fender in and we couldn't run after that, but we couldn't come in and pit and get it fixed either because of track position. We had a top 10 and just didn't get it."

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