Daytona 500 - Ford Qualifying Quotes

MARK MARTIN - No. 6 Viagra Taurus (Qualified 20th) - "It feels fine. Qualifying around this place is a non-issue, so I was just explaining to the guys a little bit about what it felt like. I just want to compliment this Viagra team and all these guys. They picked up today and everybody else has slowed down, so they did their homework well. The car is disappointing a little bit on speed here, but this is a car we really chose based on the way it drafted here in testing. I had a great race car last night in the Bud Shootout and I think that this car for 500 miles is gonna be better than that no matter how it looks here today. We'll find out where we start in the 500 on Thursday with a little warm-up race, but I think for the long haul and as Speedweeks wears on, we'll tend to forget about what happened here in time trials and start to feel really good about what we've got to race here with this Viagra Taurus." WHAT DO YOU GO TO WORK ON NOW? "We've really got a good race setup already. We ran this car a little bit in testing in the draft and the other car was fabulous last night in the Shootout. This car will race good. We've got it pretty much figured out. We're just gonna be biding our time until Thursday so we can go out here and have a little fun and get us a starting spot for the 500."

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Taurus (Qualified 2nd) - "So far so good. The M&M's Ford Taurus is fast, but the wind just killed us. If the wind will stay down the back straightaway, we might have a shot at it. But if it dies down, we'll just take what we can get. I'm proud of the guys in the engine shop and the fab shop because they gave me all they had. We'll see where that puts us." WHAT DID YOU SAY TO DJ AFTER HIS LAP? "We were just talking about how much wind is out there today. We were hoping that going out early would be an advantage, but the wind decided to throw us for a loop. The only thing we can hope is the wind stays up the whole time. Our guys and our team did their jobs. They gave us a great race car and a great motor. Man, we just hope old glory stays straight out. If it does, then we'll have a good shot." WHAT ABOUT THIS WEEK? "We learned a lot last night. Both of our cars are very fast and I think we've got a good setup to start practice with this week because our cars are so close to each other. We think we've got a pretty good advantage right now, so we're gonna use that as much as we can. Everything has been going every fourth year for Robert Yates Racing and hopefully we'll be able to keep that streak going and get one of us in Victory Lane for the 500." IS IT EASY TO GET UP IN THE MORNING WHEN THINGS ARE GOING WELL? "Yeah, it makes it to where Speedweeks is not so long. We had a long season last year and we're bound and determined to prove everybody wrong coming here to Daytona and I think we're off to a pretty good start."

DALE JARRETT - No. 88 UPS Taurus (Qualified 5th) - "Everything was good it's just that conditions today are totally different than what we saw yesterday. All we can hope for is that the wind keeps up for everybody. If it doesn't, then that's gonna be a big advantage to those guys that go late, but that's the luck of the draw. Hopefully my teammate will stay on the pole. We've got a good race car. Last night was a great confidence booster for us and I'm just looking forward to next Sunday." HOW BAD IS THE WIND? "Driving the car it's not bad, but the worst thing is you come off the corner and you see your RPM up and then as you go down the back straightaway you see the RPM fall because you're going against that head wind. That's a little disappointing, but, again, as long as it stays that way for everybody we'll be OK." HOW DOES IT FEEL ONE DAY AFTER WINNING? "It's pretty cool to win that again. Just to see the smiles on our guys' face because it's been a lot of hard work and effort. Not that everybody in the garage area hasn't done that, but I know what our guys have been through. That makes it a lot of fun and makes the week a lot more fun. I had a good night's sleep and a lot of phone calls from a lot of people that meant a lot to me."

JEFF BURTON - No. 99 TNT Taurus (Qualified 17th) - IS THE WIND A BIG PROBLEM? "It's the same for everybody. As long as it doesn't quit blowing it'll be OK. That's about what we expected from what our competition is running. We were 19th and 20th fastest yesterday in both practices, so unless something changes I guess that's about where that will end up. It's a big improvement for us on our superspeedway program from where we've been here in the past and that's what we hoped to do - to come down here and make some improvement and be able to race this thing and put on a great show and give us a chance to win the Daytona 500." HOW IS YOUR SPONSORSHIP SITUATION? "We've got a lot of stuff going on with the NBA All-Star Game here and SKF with some later dates, plus we've got a few more things coming. We're really optimistic about being able to talk about major sponsorship before too much longer, so we're excited about that."

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 Jackson Hewitt/National Guard Taurus (Qualified 1st) - "With these guys it's all about the team. I'm so proud of these guys working together. Bobby has really made our team come together and Doug has really done a great job. I've got to thank everybody for coming on board - National Guard, Jackson Hewitt and Subway. I figured we had a chance at it yesterday running as fast as this car has. We have a new engine program and that has really helped Yates and Roush out. I'm happy that Ford has done that, but I'm more excited about this 16 car having a front row starting spot." YOU WON HERE IN JULY AND NOW IT'S ON THE POLE FOR THE MOMENT. WHAT IS IT ABOUT THIS PLACE? "I don't know, just watching and learning. I've learned so much from racing with all of these guys. From Jarrett to Earnhardt, Jr. and Waltrip and Bobby Labonte, I've just learned a lot from those guys and tried to apply it. I've just tried to watch and learn and apply it. In qualifying there isn't a lot a driver can do. It's like my crew chief said, 'Just hold it wide open this time.' He was joking, but the guys on this team is all that matters about this car being on the front row and they've done a good job."

RICKY RUDD - No. 21 Motorcraft Taurus (Qualified 4th) - "We're disappointed. We thought we had a pole run and we were close. You're talking about a tenth of a second. Everybody was slowing up about two-tenths. We ran about a .55 yesterday and figured that would be around a .75 today. It was gonna be real close, borderline, but we lost a tenth more than we thought we would with this wind and I'm not really sure why." DID YOU GET EVERYTHING OUT OF IT? "I'm not really sure. We lost a tenth. Everybody gave up two tenths and we gave up three tenths. That's the difference between sitting on the pole and being fourth right now. It's kind of a strange story, I mean you get discouraged because you didn't sit on a pole but a year ago you get discouraged because you were just trying to make the race. We had been off on speed quite a bit, but we did qualify sixth-fastest last year, but I really expected more and all the guys on the team expected more. There are some long faces right now because we didn't win the pole, but it just wasn't meant to be today." FOUR OF THE TOP FIVE HAVE THE YATES/ROUSH HORSEPOWER. HOW MUCH OF A FACTOR IS THAT HERE? "I'm sure it's a big part of it. We were good during winter testing and actually had the Roush combination. We were fast then and fast with the new combination, so it seems to be working. I'm real pleased so far. Again, I'm a little discouraged we didn't sit on the pole, but we're within a tenth of a second and that's great."

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DeWalt Tools Taurus (Qualified 28th) - "I'm real disappointed in that time. I thought we would run better than that. We're almost a half-second off all of our teammates, so we've just got some work to do on our cars. We're the same on motors with all of those guys, so we've just got to get to work. It's better than what we've done in a while, but we've still got to find a little more." HOW WAS THE WIND FOR YOU? "It was windy, but I think it's been the same for everybody."

KURT BUSCH - No. 97 Sharpie/Irwin Taurus (Qualified 23rd) - "It seemed like the wind picked down the back straightaway and it let me down on the front straightaway. It's one of those deals where we thought we'd go a little quicker than that, but it's a heck of a lot better than what we've been in the past. Last year we barely got in the show on time and this year that should get us a good solid starting position for our 125." LOOKING FORWARD TO THURSDAY? "Yeah, this car I think is built more around race conditions than it is qualifying. That's the way we normally run our plan. They usually give out points on Sunday and not on Friday."

Ford Racing and it's new '04 Taurus has gotten off to a good start with Dale Jarrett's victory in Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout and Greg Biffle's pole this afternoon. Greg Specht, North American Operations Manager for Ford Racing Technology, spoke about how Ford and its teams started preparing for this year's Daytona 500 immediately after last year's event.

GREG SPECHT, North American Operations Manager, Ford Racing Technology - "This was not an overnight success. We were really unhappy with our performance last year in qualifying for the 500, so we started the day after the race. We got together back in Dearborn and kind of held hands and agreed that we had to change things. If we didn't do something differently, we were going to suffer the same results in '04. So the day after the '03 Daytona 500 is when we started working on this year's race. We met with our teams and had the same discussion with them and they agreed with us 100 percent. We really hadn't been paying enough attention to this race and that's why our performance wasn't what it should have been. Since then it's been a joint effort between us and our teams to concentrate on improving our speedway program specifically for the Daytona 500. So it has literally been a 364-day effort to get here. I firmly believe we're in better shape, relatively speaking, than we were last year, but whether we're good enough remains to be seen. Certainly it's been a lot of hard work and effort." WINNING THE SHOOTOUT AND BEING COMPETITIVE IN PRACTICE SESSIONS IS GOOD, BUT WILL THE ONLY REAL SUCCESS BE WINNING THE 500? "Winning the Daytona 500 is the barometer. We won't be happy until we win the race. The Shootout was encouraging, but, frankly, I still saw some room for improvement out there. Again, I felt we were better. We only had three cars out there, but I really felt we looked better than we have in years past. Still, I see there is room for improvement." THIS CAR SEEMED TO STRUGGLE BY ITSELF IN PREVIOUS YEARS, BUT THAT SEEMS TO HAVE CHANGED AS WELL. "We can look at wind tunnel data and compare ourselves to ourselves and we know we're better than we were last year. Whether we're the best out there, I don't know because there is so much gamesmanship going on. That's smart because you don't want to show your best hand. Half of the battle out here is knowing what the target is and it seems when people know what the target is, they'll just work tirelessly until they meet that target. That's what our guys are doing, but that's why the smart racers really don't show everything they've got until they really have to." THERE'S BEEN A LOT OF CHANGE IN NASCAR OVERALL, BUT THERE'S BEEN A LOT WITHIN FORD AS WELL -- A NEW CAR, NEW CYLINDER HEADS AND THE YATES/ROUSH ENGINE COLLABORATION. "There has been a lot of change, but we knew we had to do that because what we were doing wasn't working. You can't just will this to happen, you have to make some changes in the equipment, in the people and in the objectives. We've got a new car that was part of our program and we wanted to make sure that this was a better car for restrictor plate races. We've got a new cylinder head. Frankly, that got approved so late in the year that it's not making a difference here, whereas the car is because we worked really hard at that. Robin Pemberton, Bernie Marcus, the Wood Brothers and our other teams did a really good job and worked hard at getting that piece approved soon enough so they would have time to massage it to be ready for the Daytona 500. The cylinder head is having no impact here, but even though the joint venture between Roush, Ford and Yates happened fairly late in the season, we've been very pleased to see some improvement in the short term. I look for that to continue over the long term as the development on the new cylinder head continues. There have been some personnel changes, which have been made by our teams and by ourselves from last year to this year, but the biggest thing to me is just the focus we've put on this project. What you focus on improves. We've seen that at Ford Motor Company many times and this may be another example of it where we're really focused on improving our restrictor plate program."

FORD SWEEPS FRONT ROW FOR DAYTONA 500

After registering the first win of his NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series career at Daytona last July, Greg Biffle claimed his first series pole today with a qualifying speed of 188.387 mph (47.774 seconds). It marks the ninth time Ford has won the Daytona 500 pole and the first time for car owner Jack Roush. In addition, it's the fifth time Ford has swept the front row for the Great American Race.

FORD FRONT ROW QUALIFYING SWEEPS FOR THE DAYTONA 500
2004 - Greg Biffle (1st) and Elliott Sadler (2nd)
2000 - Dale Jarrett (1st) and Ricky Rudd (2nd)
1992 - Sterling Marlin (1st) and Bill Elliott (2nd)
1987 - Bill Elliott (1st) and Davey Allison (2nd)
1985 - Bill Elliott (1st) and Cale Yarborough (2nd)

ELLIOTT SADLER 2ND PLACE PRESS CONFERENCE - A LITTLE BIT DISAPPOINTED AND EXCITED AT THE SAME TIME? "Yeah, I think everybody wants to get the pole, but I am very ecstatic with my team. To get a position locked in already for Sunday's 500, it just seems like a load is already off my shoulders and qualifying hasn't been over for hardly an hour yet. I'm so proud of my guys. We tested very well down here in January. We went back and massaged on the car a little bit and we've been fast ever since we unloaded. We had an awesome Bud Shootout car last night, and I think we've got just as good a shot as anybody to be up front in the Twin 125s and Sunday for the 500. It's great to see all the Yates guys working together with Robert and Doug and Jack - to share a front row with a guy that's also got the same engines at the same engine shop that we've got. Four out of the top five and two Fords on the front row, all around it's been a great weekend for everybody here at Robert Yates Racing." WHAT ABOUT THE FORDS IN GENERAL. THEY'VE BEEN STRONG. "I think Ford has done a great job massaging this nose and tail before we got it. We spent a lot of wind tunnel time at the end of last season. My guys in the fab shop have been working endless nights and I think you all see the results of how much work has been going on in the motor shop also. It's just unbelievable horsepower we've had ever since we unloaded. I'm so proud of those guys. They take so much pride in the motors that we bring to Daytona each and every year and it seems to be paying off. So I want send out a great thank you to Dan Davis and Greg Specht and everybody at Ford for putting in so many hours with us in the wind tunnel. It seems to be paying off for the both of us." HOW BIG IS IT TO GET OFF TO SUCH A GOOD START? "It's been great. Last year we took a lot of beating up from a lot of different people at our race team. Robert hired a man named Eddie D'Hondt, who has really come in and taken over the race shop and got everybody working together. He got everybody so motivated and pumped up and really just going in the same direction. I love working for a team owner that doesn't just sit and try to let things fix itself. He's not afraid to go in there and make changes and make things happen. We've got a lot of new team members on both of our teams - the 38 and the 88. With two crew chiefs like Todd Parrott and Mike Ford, that's a lot of experience on this race team right now and it seems to be showing. It's just filtering on down through starting with DJ. He's kind of the leader of the pack of our whole shop. It kind of starts with him and is filtering down through myself and Mike and Todd and Eddie and just going through the whole shop and it's paying off. Everybody is walking with a little bounce in their step this week from both of our race teams and we're just glad to be here. We want to show everybody that with a little hard work and guts and determination that we can get this race team back to where it needs to be." HOW DID THE WIND AFFECT QUALIFYING? "The wind, I think, was 19 mile an hour gusts or something when I went out - right on the nose. I think that hurt my qualifying effort with our car compared to when some of the other guys went out. I knew when I went out and the time we ran that the wind had to stay up a lot for us to stay near the front. It stayed up some. I think some guys got more of a break than others, but, definitely, the wind hurt us. I mean, I almost slowed down three tenths from how fast I ran yesterday. I'm not sure where the wind was when Biffle was, but I do want to congratulate him and his team. I know they went through the same thing we went through as far as hard work this winter. If you have to lose to anybody, I would love to lose to somebody who has engines from our same program. That makes a big difference." IS IT HARD TO GET USED TO WORKING WITH THE ROUSH GUYS? "I think it was weird for me coming down here testing and pulling up in the garage and having Jack and Robert both under the hood, tuning on the intake or tuning on the carburetor or trying this or trying that. It's no secret that Robert Yates has always had great horsepower and Jack Roush has always had great fuel mileage. You put those two together, which I think is what we're learning, we're gonna have a team to be reckoned with week in and week out. We know that Dodge has kind of come in with this one-team aspect. We know what Toyota is gonna come in and do here in a couple of years, so I really applaud Ford for getting both of the two Ford giants together and working together. We're already reaping the benefits from it. Hey, if I'm gonna get beat by anybody, I want it to be somebody out of our own engine stable. That makes the guys back at the shop want to work that much harder to get our stuff ready for Rockingham and Vegas. It might have been a little weird at first, but I'm gonna tell you what, when we were just down there in Victory Lane to see Jack and Robert shaking hands and smiling ear to ear, I'm so proud of the effort they have put forth and the rewards they're getting for it. Hey, man, that makes it all worthwhile." HOW IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH TODD? "My relationship with Todd, I think, is great. I think we complement very well in our attitudes. He is a hard-nosed, not let anything slide between the cracks kind of a guy and he expects a lot from his race car driver. That's really helped me a bunch. At the end of last year it took me a while to get used to it. Sometimes I didn't know if my feelings should be hurt or if I should take his advice, so I really had to work through some things. But the more we're working together, I think the better we're learning each other. He's gonna make me a better race car driver week in and week out. I really love his determination and his no-nonsense method from Thursday night when we land at the race track until Sunday when we go home. He knows when I'm in the race car that I'm the same way and we're really reflecting off each other right now. He demands a lot from me inside the car, but I'm really enjoying it and it's making me a better driver - not only behind the wheel but as far as information I can give my guys to help me as far as setups and things like that. I think the more we work together, the better we're gonna get." DO YOU THINK THE GAP WITH DEI HAS NARROWED? "I would hope so. That's something that's been going on in our shop the last year or so. Doug Yates and Robert have really tried to make a commitment with people and money and everything else to try to narrow this gap. We knew that DEI had kind of stepped out to a big lead and really had a leg up on everyone at these restrictor plate races. I qualified on the pole at Talladega last year and had, I think, a car good enough to win. I qualified on the outside pole here for the 500. DJ wins the Bud Shootout last night. Are we at the status they're at? No. No we're not. Not until we win a couple in a row and do the things they've been doing. Are we closing the gap? I would say yes. I think we're getting in their range. What benefit they have is that those two guys are used to working with each other and usually use each other to win. They always try to help each other. We've got to get both the 38 and the 88, and now with some of the other Roush guys, we've got to get our cars working good together where we can team up and try to outrun those guys. But I definitely think we're closing the gap little by little."

GREG BIFFLE POLE-WINNING PRESS CONFERENCE - WHAT ABOUT THE PRESTIGE FACTOR OF BEING ON THE POLE? "I don't think it's set in yet. The more you talk about leading the field to the green for the Daytona 500, it's kind of coming to be real. It's hard to explain how far the 16 team has come since last year. These guys have worked really, really hard. We've got some new sponsors on board this year. The National Guard and Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, but it's the same team that's back. I've worked really hard over the winter and Doug has worked really hard and I'm just proud of them. They're the ones that deserve the credit for this car being on the pole. The driver does not do a whole lot to be on the pole here at Daytona and I'm so proud of that 16 for what they have done and the car they've given me to drive here. It's pretty exciting."

JACK ROUSH, Car Owner - No. 16 Jackson Hewitt/National Guard Taurus - WHAT ABOUT TODAY? "Greg has brought Roush Racing the Truck championship and the Busch championship, which were the first two championships that we've had and, of course, winning the Firecracker race last July was the first time we had won here in a stock car. Ford gave us all the technical support we could have asked for this winter. NASCAR gave us a new set of templates for a new Taurus body. We've got a new cylinder head, which we don't have in our car yet and that's going to give us some relief on our engine. With the momentum we had coming off of Matt Kenseth's win with DeWalt last year, I'm really excited about the year going forward. I hadn't expected to be under the limelight here with Greg at this juncture a week before the race. The idea of having the pole, I'd never given it a consideration."

GREG BIFFLE CONTINUED - YOU BORROWED A CAR FROM A TEAMMATE TO MAKE THIS RACE LAST YEAR, DIDN'T YOU? "Yeah, that was the way our season started. Our first year full time in Winston Cup we had to borrow a car from the DeWalt team because the two we had built weren't fast enough. That car qualified the best of the Roush cars last year here and ran up front at Talladega with it and then won here in July, so that turned out to be a really good car. We went on to combine the chassis and body things together on the 6, the 99 and the 16 team. We consolidated that race shop together. All of the cars are the same coming out of that shop now - at least everybody is touching the same part of the car. That's why we decided to build all new cars to come back here or technically new bodies. This chassis is not new. It's actually one of Mark's backup cars from a few years back or last year, I'm not sure which, but it's got a new body on it. The guys have just worked really hard and I'm excited to bring back a really good piece like this. It's just all the hard work they've done. We're better prepared this year being a second-year team and we've got Bobby (Bakeeff) as the car chief off the 17 team. He came over this winter to be our car chief with Doug on the 16, so we've got some in-house promotion of people going on. Everything is going good for us right now. I would have never thought we'd be on the pole for the 500 but I'm excited." WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES FROM QUALIFYING TO RACE TRIM WITH THIS CAR? "Actually, I know we've got a little work ahead of us. This car, I did not really like in drafting trim when we were down here in preseason testing. Although it was fairly fast in qualifying trim, I didn't really care for the way it drove. It was kind of loose. We've made some adjustments on it and didn't have it like I wanted when we left here. Yet, we only did two hours of drafting, so I'm anxious to see what it's gonna be like. I can't predict right now how the car is gonna be, but you can tell there's a difference with the tires. I watched the Bud Shootout and it looks like it was an awesome race - lots of action - so I can't wait for that. I can't wait for happy hour and the 125s to see how this car acts around a bunch of other cars. As long as it's not loose like the 19 car was, which is what I'm a little afraid of right now, we'll be in good shape." DOES THIS GIVE MORE CREDIBILITY TO WHAT YOU DID IN JULY? "I think so. It kind of makes a little bit of a statement. They need to look at the race a little bit better last year and see who was up front leading. It was the 18, the 16 and the 5. We were out in front of all those DEI cars for a little bit of the race, so, yeah, this says something for us. It says that Roush's restrictor plate program has come a long ways in the last two years. Considering I didn't make the race in 2002 with a blown up engine in the 125s to now sitting on the pole for the 500 is pretty exciting." HOW DO YOU LIKE BEING THE FOX INSTEAD OF THE HOUND? "Yeah, I like that. It's kind of neat. I can't wait for that green flag on the 125s and that 500. It'll be something else. I thought we'd come down here with an opportunity. Certainly everybody has a fair chance at winning the 500 and I thought that we had an opportunity to win it. I never thought I'd have an opportunity to sit on the pole, but now my chances of winning the 500 are extremely better than they were." IT LOOKED LIKE YOU WERE REALLY NERVOUS ABOUT GETTING THIS POLE. DOES THIS MEAN MUCH MORE? "Yeah, I was sweating it out. I'm still half-sick to my stomach from watching the rest of those cars go. Yeah, this pole means a lot. This isn't like winning the 500, certainly, but this is the biggest pole of the season, if you can say that. Winning this pole here is more prestigious than anywhere else throughout the season. I really wanted to start our season out this way and having an opportunity to be there I was just sweating it even worse. At Richmond I was nervous about whether I was gonna get beat and the same with Watkins Glen when I got beat by just a tiny bit. But here I was way more nervous than that because of the prestige that goes along with being at Daytona."

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED - DO YOU THINK THE OTHER MAKES WILL COMPLAIN AND, IF SO, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR RESPONSE? "I expect that the other manufacturers will make their best appeal as Ford would. This new Taurus that we've got now is the first relief we've had in templates that has let us improve ourselves since '97. In the meantime, there has been a couple of Chevrolets and a new Pontiac and the Dodge has been revised twice. Every year the Ford - since '97 until this year - got a new set of templates which made it go slower. This is the first time we've had any relief and I think it's time. Last year, people looked at Matt's championship and said we kind of tapered off to it, but when we started the year last year we had everything that we had the prospect of being able to do performance-wise. The Chevrolets and Dodges got better throughout the year, so we've got some relief for our engine, which we haven't had since '92 and we got some relief for our body, which we hadn't since '97. There will be some complaints, but the Ford teams are good race teams and they're well driven with good drivers and good crew chiefs and we should be better. Last year, I think the Fords only had two poles for the entire year and maybe only one (actually three). The Roush bunch didn't have a single pole, so that was an indication that things weren't balanced evenly. I think we'll do better with that, but I do expect some criticism."

GREG BIFFLE CONTINUED - DID YOU PAY ATTENTION TO THIS RACE GROWING UP IN WASHINGTON AND WAS THE FIRST TIME HERE WHEN YOU WERE A DRIVER? "No, the first time I was here was as a driver, but I always watched this race - always. We had a Daytona 500 party every year and would get together and watch it because we're getting ready for our season to start out there. The season doesn't start until April, but I always watched this race. I never could afford to make the trip back here, let alone if I spent the money to come here that was at least three or four sets of tires or another set of headers I could have bought for my race car. Secondly, I probably didn't have the time off of work to be able to come back here. We were trying to get ready for the season building new cars, so that's probably why I never came back and watched a race. But '98 was the first time here in the Truck Series when I got the opportunity." WHAT STOOD OUT ABOUT THAT FIRST TIME HERE? "Going down the backstretch with Kurt Busch having my wheels off the ground was quite an experience in the trucks here, but it was neat to make that first lap around Daytona in a truck. We came here and tested unrestricted. I don't remember how fast we ran, but it was fast. It was really fast. I think it was '99 the first year the trucks came here, but it was kind of neat to be able to come here for the first time. I was so excited when they announced on that schedule that we were going to Daytona in the trucks. That was kind of cool."

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED - "I've been coming to Daytona since 1984 with sports cars and then, of course, I started with my Winston Cup cars in 1988. I've already won seven or eight times at Daytona in various IMSA and SCCA classes before I came with the stock cars. I had never come to Daytona before 1988 when I didn't take a checkered flag and I generally had a pole, but I've been snakebit. Until Greg won the Firecracker last year, I had been snakebit with the stock cars. It seemed easy with the sports cars and it seemed an unachievable goal with the stock cars. We have got a chance to be a factor in the 500 as never before this year and I'm really excited about it." CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE CHANGE IN ENGINE POWER FROM LAST YEAR TO THIS YEAR? "Robert and I put our engine programs together on the 27th of November and shortly after that we sent an engine from Michigan down to North Carolina. When they ran the first engine, they found that the engine we ran at Talladega was two horsepower less than the engine they ran at Talladega. They were surprised to find they were so close. We put a number of their parts on the outside of the engine and I'm not gonna say which ones, but some parts that bolt to the engine and are accessories to the engine, and it made a four-horsepower better package than they had seen and a six-horsepower package better than I had seen. From that point until now the winter has been an Easter egg hunt. We've been taking things apart and seeing how they work and just putting the best of both together. There have been a lot of things that I hadn't thought about that I saw that they had done very well and, to their surprise, a number of things they saw that the Roush guys had done better than they had thought. That has manifested itself in a bigger gain in our engines than I have had from one year to the next and I think than they've had, so we're way ahead of where we were last year." CAN YOU RELATE HOW IT USED TO BE BETWEEN YOU AND ROBERT? "I certainly had respect for him and I hope he had respect for me, but from the beginning of the racing season, which would be Daytona, until the end which used to be Atlanta, we wouldn't talk to one another. We wouldn't acknowledge one another. We wouldn't have eye contact. We wouldn't shake hands. By all mean, we wouldn't wish one another good luck. We were struggling and competing for the same bit of support that Ford would give somebody. We wanted to have as much of it as we could and we competed on the race tracks because we had very similar hardware. It was kind of a sibling rivalry thing that Ford saw was a problem. If they invested money on a development program with Robert, they wouldn't share it with me and if they invested with me, I insisted they wouldn't give it to Robert. With looking at what Dodge is doing and looking at the way the Chevrolet programs work and what the other manufacturers coming are gonna do by reputation and the plans they've made, it was clear the way Robert and I had been conducting our affairs was not gonna work. Ford said, 'Why don't you guys cooperate.' I offered to share an engine and he tapped me on the shoulder at Atlanta and said, 'Hey, I know you're getting ready to build a shop in North Carolina. Why don't you buy half of mine and you won't have to build a new shop.' So we're 50-50 partners to the dirt right now and we're committed to go down the road. Our race teams are gonna run closer together than the could have otherwise. What I see is a modern day reincarnation of the Holman-Moody kind of concept around Ford." DID YOU TAKE A WIND MEASUREMENT BEFORE GREG LEFT TO QUALIFY? "Yes. A wind measurement was taken and what was the wind?"

GREG BIFFLE CONTINUED - "I don't know. Our team engineer was keeping track of the wind and he knew that after we had qualified that the wind had picked up a little bit. When the 41 car qualified, it was the least it had been since after I qualified, which still wasn't as calm. So the wind increased after I qualified by a little bit gradually and consistently stayed a little bit more." SADLER SAID HIS WAS 19. "I think when we went out, I don't know for sure, but I think most of the wind I saw was 11 miles an hour gusting to 18. Then it was 12 gusting to 20 for most all of the rest of the guys. I think ours was 10 or 11 gusting to 17 when we went." IS YOUR MIND ALREADY ON THE LAST SEASON STRETCH? "No, it isn't. They start scoring the points here next Sunday. We're thinking about that already. We want to make the top 10 in points and that's where our focus is - to have a chance to win the title this year. We think we can do it. We think our 16 team is capable of it. Certainly starting out like this I feel that they are and I'm gonna try to do the best I can as a driver to try to position myself to be there at the end."