EA Sports 500 - Rookie Friday Quotes

GREG BIFFLE, NO. 16 GRAINGER FORD:

ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THE STRUCTURE OF THE RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE POINT SYSTEM? "I think so. What a lot of people end up looking at is where you're at in points, overall points, which doesn't impact how the (rookie) point system works. It confuses some people, but myself, I think it works. It's fair for everybody, I guess. The one thing is the voting on the deal. I think it should be performance based, who does the best job on the racetrack. That's what we're scored for and that's how we get points. That's how the champion wins the championship. That's kind of a gray area for me, how all that works and how that can come out. That's about the only thing about the point system that I think should be changed or governed a different way, where our performance strictly is who wins the deal." DO YOU THINK CONDUCT AND MEDIA RELATIONS SHOULD STILL BE CONSIDERED? "Yeah, I suppose so. I look at it as what is Raybestos® Rookie of the Year? Who won rookie of the year in '86 or '95 and why. We look back and watch the tapes and everything else and they won rookie of the year because they ran better than the other guy. That's what we look at. Like last year, was it because Jimmie Johnson was better in the media than Ryan Newman? I maybe don't give that as much credit as some other folks do. I suppose if a guy is a jackass or something you've got to vote against him or if he's a total jerk but I really don't think any of us are like that. I guess it can be a part of it." HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO WIN RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR? "It's really important to me. I'm working as hard as I can every week to accomplish that and conduct myself the way I need to be, focus on the racetrack and focus on the team. We've been having some struggles and we're kind of on the rebound right now. We just do the best we can and see where we end up. It means a lot to me to win Raybestos® Rookie of the Year." WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THE POINT SYSTEM CHANGED IN WINSTON CUP WHERE A CERTAIN NUMBER OF RACES ARE DROPPED? "I really don't know what they would do to make it any better. I think it's a good system the way it works. If anything, count more of them than less of them. Count 30 of them and drop six of your worst finishes off and count those because that's an overview of the season. You could make a case for any of the different scenarios." WOULD THAT ELIMINATE A SITUATION WHERE A DRIVER WOULD TRY TO COME BACK TOO SOON AFTER AN INJURY OR BRING A DAMAGED CAR BACK ON THE TRACK? "But then a part of that takes the reward for consistency away from a guy to a guy who's maybe more reckless or more 'dive in there and try and get it done' versus executing being precise, taking a sixth instead of trying to bonsai down in there and get third. That could have an impact on it as well. Like I said, you could make a case either way but I would look at giving up a few races is definitely something that we need to think about."

NOTE: Larry Carter and Donnie Wingo were asked their thoughts on how to improve restrictor plate racing.

LARRY CARTER, CREW CHIEF, NO. 74 BACE MOTORSPORTS CHEVROLET:

"For improving the speedway racing, what I would say is put about a 30 foot fence up. Make it a pay-per-view event. Take the spoilers off and don't run a restrictor plate and I believe they could sell a lot of tickets. No plate and no spoiler. That would take care of a lot of the template discrepancies and the bodies and stuff. You wouldn't have to worry about any of that. Inspection time would be slowed down quite a bit. They would just make it a pay-per-view. Everybody would send their 50 bucks in and they can watch the race on TV and when they send one off into the grandstands there won't be anybody there. That will separate the men from the boys." WHAT IS THE MOST AGGRAVATING THING ABOUT PLATE RACING? "The thing that's the most difficult is the pill that you have to swallow to get down here. For four races you probably spend 10 or 15 percent of your racing budget: testing, motors, re-hanging bodies, to go run four races that don't give you any more points than the race that you go run at Martinsville. The effort that's required to get these cars to go through tech because the tech is a lot more stringent here than it is at other racetracks, although I would say that they have probably gotten it quite a bit closer now because they are pretty tight on all the stuff at every place that we go. It just seems to take longer here. When you are trying to make a qualifying run you can only run in clean air. You come down here and you know that you are only going to get only two or maybe three clean runs. What you unload with off the truck, that's what you've got. You're not going to change that a lot. If you haven't tested, like we haven't, we really don't have the money in our budget at this point in the year to do any testing. We're kind of cold turkey because this is a new car for us. We're sitting here real nervous, wanting to go out there and practice and see where we're going to be on the sheet." HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO NOT SPEND MORE THAN YOU SHOULD IN PREPARATION FOR THE DAYTONA 500? "For that race you just have to do what you have to do. That's just a given. It is what it is. It's the first race of the year, probably the biggest race of the year, and you've got to make it. You just have to do whatever you do. If that means you've got to spend half your budget to make one race that's what you've got to do because your season is not very good if you don't make that race." WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO CHANGE PLATE RACING? IS THERE A SOLUTION? "I don't think there is right now. I think the only thing they could really do would be change the configuration of a track and not really make it a superspeedway anymore, which I know they've bounced that idea around. In order for them to control the speeds that the cars are going I don't believe there is any getting out of the situation that we are in right now. I personally don't think it's terrible. It's just a part of the big racing deal anyway. It's part of the show. It's a good race for the fans, they like it."

DONNIE WINGO, CREW CHIEF, NO. 42 HAVOLINE DODGE:

"Maybe try to take some downforce back off them and try them again, where you've got to drive them again. Right now anybody can drive them. But I don't know how to go about doing that. I think it would take a long process of doing that but if there is some way you can take some of the downforce back off of them, where you had to make them handle. That would be the only thing that I know you could do right now." WHAT IS THE MOST CHALLENGING PART OF RACING AT TALLADEGA AND DAYTONA? IS IT THE INSPECTION PROCESS? "That's aggravating but I mean when you get there what you've got when you unload is what you've got. There's really not that much you can do to make it any faster. As the race finishes it just depends on where you are at and what position you are in as what's going to happen. If you get caught behind and they get three wide then you can't pass nobody because you've got to go below the line to do that so then you get penalized for that. You've just got to put yourself up at the front at the end of the race is the only thing that you can do. There's really not much that you can do." HOW FRUSTRATING IS THAT? "It's pretty fustrating. You can tweak it a little bit, gain a tenth here or there qualifying but once you start race trim, it's pretty much up to the driver and the spotter to get yourself in position to win the race and that's about all you can do."

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