Pocono 500 - Ford Post-Race Quotes

DALE JARRETT - No. 88 UPS Taurus (Finished 42nd) - "I'm fine. I don't know, I either cut down a tire or the tread came off, something like that. As I was coming down the straightaway the car just got a serious vibration and started hopping before it just turned around. It's unfortunate because the car was good." THAT WAS THE SECOND WRECK IN TURN ONE. WHAT'S GOING ON THERE? "I have no idea what happened in the first one, but, like I say, I think mine cut a tire down. It's one of those unfortunate things." DID YOU HURT YOUR HAND? "No, it was just on fire and it got really hot and I was trying to get my gloves off." WHAT HAPPENED? "Apparently, it cut a tire or the tread started coming off the right-rear just going down the straightaway before I even got to the point of shifting. It started vibrating and then started hopping then and just turned around. Apparently, something happened with the right-rear tire. It's unfortunate. I had a really good race car and it's just kind of the way the season has gone." HOW WAS IT GETTING OUT? "It's always hard to get out, especially when you're trying to get out in a hurry, but everything is fine."

MARK MARTIN - No. 6 Viagra Taurus (Finished 2nd) - "We couldn't beat Tony unless something happened, but I was sure gonna try to make something happen there at the end. I wanted to run it out. We had a great car on the long run and it's just a tribute to Ben Leslie and the whole Viagra team. The Taurus worked well on the long run and we got a lot of long runs and that was really good for us. I think if we would have had a caution every 20 laps we would have struggled to finish that high." DID YOU HAVE ANYTHING FOR TONY? "Not unless something happened and I was gonna try every way I could to figure out a way to make something happen because it's been a while."

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 Grainger Taurus (Finished 20th) - WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END? "It's just Mike Skinner, as usual. He causes about half of the wrecks in Winston Cup and he pushed the 9 up into the wall through the tunnel and came across the front of us and wrecked a bunch of people." HOW WERE YOU UP TO THAT POINT? "Not bad. We got really, really loose there for a while and tightened it up and it wasn't bad. I was kind of medium there at the end and I could run with the guys, but I was just off a little bit all day."

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DEWALT Power Tools Taurus (Finished 3rd) - "We kind of got lucky and got our track position back because we made a little mistake and got behind in the pits. I think we ran out of gas, but we came back from that with the way the pit cycle worked out. We got up front and when we got up front the car handled real good." DID YOU MAKE A LOT OF CHANGES? "We didn't change much. It was pretty decent all day. I struggled a little bit in one end, but I was real good in the other end so we didn't change anything really big. It was a real good car on long runs. It wasn't real fast the first few laps, but on the long run it was real good." DID YOU HAVE ANYTHING IF THAT LAST CAUTION HADN'T COME OUT? "No, we had about a third-place car there. I felt like I was as good as the 6. The 20 was pretty good. If we would have been in front, I think we were pretty equal but for how it turned out I'd say it was pretty good." DISCOURAGING TO END UNDER CAUTION? "It wasn't discouraging at all for me. I wasn't gonna catch those guys. I was gonna finish third anyway. It's a 500-mile race and we ran 490 miles. If there was a red flag it would kind of be setting everybody up for a wreck, so I was happy with the way it ended. It was good." DO YOU FEEL YOU'RE HEADED IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION? "I hope so. We had a real solid car all day. We weren't perfect, but we had a solid car and came home with a good finish."

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Taurus (Finished 9th) - "I'm happy. We've had so much bad luck the last month it's kind of like getting the wheels back on the train for this race team. We had a great race car in the middle part of the race. I mean, we were awesome, and then we just got too tight there at the end and fell back some spots. We think there are some areas we need to work on, but I want to congratulate my motor guys again. This was an unbelievable motor. If we didn't have that, we probably would have finished 20th, but the guys did a great job. We're gonna call this a pretty successful day." YOU STAYED OUT ON THE TRACK WHEN THE 88 WRECKED. WAS THAT THE KEY TO YOUR DAY? "Yeah, because we lost some spots on the pit stop before. I said, 'Hey, let's just get some track position here and get some clean air on our nose.' I think that's what enabled us to finish in the top 10. I don't know if we would have been able to pass all those cars like the 8 and the 20 and all those guys did, so that was definitely a great call by Raymond. That helped us run up front and lead some laps. We led at halfway, so that's good for Elliott Sadler to do that here at Pocono. I've never been in that position before, so it was all kind of new to me."

RICKY RUDD - No. 21 Motorcraft Taurus (Finished 37th) - "I'm not really sure what it is, but something broke in the transmission. There was no warning whatsoever, but right about the time you grab high gear at the start-finish line it just broke. Sometimes you break something and at least you've got first or second gear, but there was nothing left. I'm not sure what broke in it, but it's a shame for the Motorcraft/Air Force Ford. We didn't have the kind of day we would liked to have had, but we kept adjusting on the car and actually weren't too far off the pace. We just never could get track position and couldn't get a caution when we needed it there late. It came out, but, unfortunately, we're the ones that brought it out."

JEFF BURTON - No. 99 CITGO Taurus (Finished 14th) - DID IT HURT A LITTLE TO HAVE TO PIT WHILE LEADING AT THE END? "Well, we just stayed out to lead a lap. Everybody had to pit, so I wasn't in a situation that was different than anybody else. We were OK all day. By myself I was pretty decent, but behind other cars I got just a terrible push. We've been struggling with that all year, we can't seem to make our stuff turn behind other cars. We're gaining on it. We gave up a couple spots by pitting, but I thought pitting was the right thing to do. We've just got to keep working."

MATT KENSETH PRESS CONFERENCE - YOUR RUN TODAY? "We had a good run. We had a decent car. It wasn't great, but it was real good on the long run. We had a lot of long runs when we needed them, so everybody did a good job. We had a well prepared car and the pit deal worked out where we got some track position. We had decent track position all day and was able to get a good finish from it." CAN YOU COMMENT ON THE FUEL MILEAGE FOR YOUR CAR? "I think it was as good as anybody else's. The first stop we ran three or four laps longer than everybody and we led a lap there, so because of our good fuel mileage and the way that whole deal worked out, we were gonna go to the end even if there wasn't a caution. I think Sterling and some of those guys might have had to pit twice and then we only had to stop one time to the end, so I think it was pretty good all day." THOUGHTS ON THE RESTART WITH 4 TO GO? "We just restarted and everybody had a little gap in between each other. With four to go and everybody on old tires and all bunched up it's tough to really get any passing done. We raced 490 miles before that and I think for that long run the best car was probably already in front and I don't think I could have done anything with either one of them. For a while I thought maybe I could catch the 6, but after he cleared lap traffic he seemed to get back away from me. So I felt like where we finished was about how good of a car we had. I felt like we had maybe a third or fourth-place car and finished third. I don't think we could have done anything with four to go." HOW DO YOU FEEL GOING INTO MICHIGAN WITH THE POINTS LEAD? "It feels great going to Michigan. It's a great race track. The last three or four times we've been there we've run really well. Roush cars seem to run pretty decent there all the time and it's fun to go there. Roush Industries is there and Jack is from that area, so everytime we go there I look forward to it. You can run three or four-wide in the corners and it's a great race track for these kind of cars to put on a good race. I think it's a great race for the fans, it's a really fun race for the drivers and I feel really good about where we're at today. But there's a lot of racing left to do and, as we all know, everything can change in one race so we've just got to keep working hard and do the best we can do every week." HOW ARE YOU MAINTAINING YOUR CONSISTENCY? "Compared to last year, two things. At the end of last year I made a couple of mistakes, but so far we haven't had any parts break - knock on wood - and we didn't get in a big wreck at Daytona and Talladega. Last year I was in three out of the four big wrecks at the speedways and got destroyed and got terrible finishes in all of them. At this time last year we had some parts that were already breaking, so, so far, so good in that area. The car has been running at the end of the race and I've been lucky enough not to tear anything up yet. To finish first you must first finish and our stuff has been running at the end and that's important." YOU RAN OUT OF GAS THAT ONE TIME AROUND LAP 50. HOW DID YOU COME BACK FROM THAT? "It was kind of a panic moment. I was mad because the clutch went bad and we've been having problems with the clutch all weekend and never really got it fixed. I was a little upset about that, but the track is so big we didn't lose a lap. The way it worked out, we got a caution shortly thereafter and we were getting such better mileage than a lot of the cars that we just decided to stay out. It got us on a different cycle, but it took us from 25th up to fifth and that put us back in position to be up front at the end." WOULD THAT KIND OF PROBLEM LAST YEAR LED TO A 25TH-PLACE FINISH? "I actually feel like this year we haven't been as lucky as we were last year. When we won Richmond in the fall, we had two flat tires and came back from that to win, so I felt like we had a lot of good luck last year, even when we were in bad situations. This year, I feel like so far we've had even luck. We had a few things go wrong that maybe cost us a top two or three and we finished seventh, eighth or ninth, but then we've had a couple things go right where maybe we had a little worse car than what we finished. I think it's been about average."

MARK MARTIN PRESS CONFERENCE - ON OLD TIRES AND SINGLE FILE LATE IN THE RACE, THAT WAS PRETTY TOUGH. "Also you had the fastest cars in the front. You didn't have any in there that shouldn't have been in there, so that even adds to that. The fastest car probably on the race track was leading and one of the next-best cars was in second and one of the next-best cars was in third and fourth and so on. Well, when you put 'em out there in that order, logically you're not gonna see a lot of scrambling either. I was really, really pleased with the way our car ran and really, really pleased with our race team. They brought a car that qualified sixth and then without race setup practice, Ben Leslie and the guys adjusted on it throughout the day and made a car that was a contender, so I have to be really proud about that." ARE YOU TIRED OF RUNNER-UP FINISHES AT POCONO? "I'm proud and honored." IS THIS A PICK-UP TYPE OF RUN FOR YOU? "Our car ran better today than it has the last few races, but we've had some really great race cars and had those runs spoiled too. There's no way that we've had the kind of luck that we had last year. I don't think I was lucky last year, but I was sure a lot more lucky than I have been this year, that's for sure. I feel like our race team has learned a whole lot in the last four weeks and this is the first sign of it and as we go forward, I believe we're gonna see more results from the things that we've learned the last four weeks. When we start racing every week the bad luck and good luck starts to balance out and, hopefully, we'll get on a roll and stay on it all summer." DOES POCONO OWE YOU ONE FOR ALL THESE SECOND-PLACE FINISHES? "You guys are all mixed up. You just don't get it. I mean, it's hard to run second and everybody else out there wanted to run second, except Tony Stewart, versus what they did. Winning is better than second, but that's the only thing that's better than second. There ain't nothing else out there as good. I'm not gonna celebrate tonight, but if I would have won I wouldn't have celebrated tonight, so I'm just gonna go home and get ready for another race. I don't see why I should be knocking the sides out of my trailer because I ran second. I'm happy to run good and happy to be a contender and a lot of race car drivers better than me don't ever get a chance to drive these cars much less run second five times here or whatever." HOW HARD WAS IT TODAY WITHOUT PRACTICE YESTERDAY? "We were off at the start of the race and it took until about the third adjustment for our car to really come around and we'd worked our way back to about 20th place, so we had to do all of that pretty much on green-flag racing. Man, we battled our way back the hard way, so it was an awesome car. We worked our way back up into the top five just on long, long, long green-flag runs, where our car was very stout. Ben Leslie and the Viagra team, they were on it today. Good pit stops, good adjustments, a great race car when it counted." WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE TRIED TO DO IF THE RACE HAD GONE GREEN AGAIN? "Tony was running good and so were we. In order for me to finish ahead of him, something was gonna have to happen. I was gonna do everything I could do to try to see if something would happen, but I didn't have any tricks in the bag. If he would have slipped, missed a gear, I don't know what. If I could have gotten close to him and got the air off of him or whatever, the race would have been on, but they were running good. I can't say we were fixing to get him or anything like that."

KURT BUSCH - No. 97 Rubbermaid Taurus (Finished 36th) - "This is as bad as we've ever been. I guess not having any practice yesterday hurt us because it certainly wasn't from a lack of effort. I don't know what to say."

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