Brickyard 400 - Ford Post-Race Quotes

MARK MARTIN - No. 6 Viagra Taurus (Finished 25th) - TOUGH WAY TO END. "Yeah, I just wanted to have a chance and we did. It was a great effort by the Viagra team and we ran awfully good. Things just didn't go our way today." YOU HAD A GOOD CAR. "We ran good today, but, unfortunately, things set us back. I'm awfully proud of this team and it's an honor to drive for all these guys. They put their hearts in this stuff and they give me some great race cars, especially today and last week - every week. We just had a little bad luck." WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END? "The left-front went flat. Evidently, that was sort of a tire problem today. A number of people had that and that was our second one."

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DEWALT Tools Taurus (Finished 16th) - COULD YOU HAVE MADE A RUN AT GORDON? "I think we would have gotten there, but getting there here and passing are way two different things. We were about a tenth better than he was in the long run, but that's usually not enough to get around someone, so I think we could have got there and made a race out of it if it would have stayed green and we wouldn't have hit that debris. But I don't know if we could have beat him or not. He was pretty good all day." WAS THE DEBRIS OUT THERE OR DID IT GET KNOCKED INTO YOU? "I don't know. We were the first two cars to it, so Gordon said he hit it too. I hit it. I don't know if it was laying there or not. By the time I saw it, I was already right on track to hit it. There's pretty much one line here and to move off that line is hard to do at the last minute." YOU DIDN'T SEE IT THE LAP BEFORE? "No, I didn't see it. If I would have seen it, I wouldn't have run it over the second time by." FRUSTRATED? "I feel good that we ran good, but I'm real frustrated we didn't get to finish. It's disappointing, but we've had a couple years of pretty good luck and that's just something that happens that's bad luck." ABOUT YOUR DAY. "We had a great car. We had a car good enough to run with Jeff. I don't know if we could have beat him, but in the long run we were a little bit better than he was. We were starting to close the gap there and ran into that piece of brake rotor or whatever was out there, so it was just kind of some bad luck. We've had a lot of good luck here the last couple of years, so this is usually the way the business works. It's usually up and down, but it's disappointing to have a car that good at a race this big and can't bring it home with a good finish." HOW TOUGH WAS THE PACE TODAY? "We were running hard because we were up front, so we could run hard the whole time trying to catch Jeff, but there were just so many cautions. Usually at a track like this, we don't get that many cautions. It was difficult to get into a rhythm because of all the cautions and we had a really good long run setup, but not a very good setup on restarts. That made it difficult with all those yellows." IS THIS WHY THE GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERED IS BAD FOR THE SPORT? "I don't know. You knew they were gonna wreck. They knew we were gonna wreck and we knew we were gonna wreck. It's not a surprise. That's just gonna be part of it with that rule." GORDON THOUGHT A YELLOW SHOULD HAVE BEEN THROWN WITH THE DEBRIS. "Well, yeah. Today is not an example of one of them, but a lot of times you see cautions and we can't figure out why - for a piece of duct tape or something. When there's something like that - that was a five-pound bullet." WHAT WAS IT? "I think it was a piece of brake rotor off the 40, but I'm not sure. As soon as you see something like that, they definitely need to throw it, but maybe they didn't see that soon. I don't know."

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Taurus (Finished 3rd) - "To come in here and run as good as we just ran, to finish third, run in the top three or four all day long - it says a lot about our race team, says a lot about the character. I love racing my teammate like that. It's great for the whole Robert Yates organization. One car was better than the team today. The 24, they had a great race car, my congratulations to Jeff Gordon. But, I'm really, really proud of my race team right now." MORE ON HIS THIRD-PLACE FINISH. "I had so much fun today and learned a lot about this race track. I've got to send by congratulations to Jeff Gordon and his race team, but I'm so proud of my guys and Dale Jarrett's guys - for our race team to finish second and third is great for the whole Yates organization. And I'm proud of everybody with M&M's and Ford and everybody for being behind me 100 percent and it's great to come into Indy and run like this." DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAD A RUN AT DALE JARRETT AT ALL? "Yeah, I was making some runs at him, but he was doing what he was supposed to do, and taking the air off my front air dam, making me push a little bit. But I had fun. I tried to get him on the last lap, but I wasn't going to take both of us out to make stupid move for one position. We both needed this for points and it worked out good." YOU PREDICTED IT EARLIER IN THE WEEK. "We just got a little bit loose on one run and lost some track position and I wish I was near the 24 car there at the end to try to make a run at him, but I'm so happy with third and I'm so glad that DJ got second. It's a great run for the whole Yates organization."

TODD PARROTT - crew chief, No. 38 M&M's Taurus - "It was a good day. We started out really well, led some laps early and the car got a little bit loose the stop before last we put two tires on and got back in traffic and picked up that dreaded aero push. Just had a hard time. I think if we could've got by DJ, we may have had a shot at the 24 because the car was really, really good right there at the end. You know, that's racin'. They both did what they had to do, and two Robert Yates cars finished second and third. What more can you ask from a day like that?" DID THE CAUTIONS HURT AT THE END? "The car was really good. You can't control what happens on the race track. Cautions are cautions and cautions breed cautions. But the guys did a great job. We had a fast race car all day long and we did what we had to do." A GOOD SEASON CONTINUES TO GET BETTER. "Yeah, I think so. A day like today and a car like we had today, I think we got a lot of good things to come here the rest of the season."

DALE JARRETT - No. 88 UPS Taurus (Finished 2nd) - "We share all of our information, I don't know what they do over there. They have a great organization over at Hendricks but it would be hard to imagine they have anything better than what we have here. I know those two guys are pretty close, but I can't imagine anything closer than my teammate and I. He's having a great, great season. He had another good points day. He's got himself solidly in the top 10 now, and we're working our way towards there."

ROBERT YATES - owner, No. 38 M&M's Taurus and No. 88 UPS Taurus - "Two and three, and we one of the best cars here - both of them were great cars. It's some sort of year we're having. We love this place. It's been good to us." ON THE TWO TEAMS' SUCCESS THIS SEASON. "It's where we need to be. They're doing a great job. I'm having a lot of fun right now."

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus (Finished 6th) - YOU MAY HAVE PASSED MORE CARS ON THE TRACK THAN ANYBODY. "Man, I tell you what, where we pitted wasn't good. I don't know why they were beating us so bad, but everytime we pitted we lost probably a minimum of 4-6 spots each time. The guys were doing good stops, but pit road was all jumbled up with traffic and it just wouldn't work out for us. The National Guard Ford was decent. It's a backup car. Our primary car was better than that, but that's the way it goes." A LOT OF CAUTIONS. DID SHORT RUNS HURT YOU? "Not really. We were pretty good on the short run and the long run really." THE GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERED LOOKED KIND OF HAIRY. "Yeah, it did. I'm not sure if there was contact up there and the guy got the flat tire or what. I saw Junior's tire going down under caution, but I don't know what happened to Mark's tire."

KURT BUSCH - No. 97 Sharpie/IRWIN Taurus (Finished 10th) - "We survived the whole day, but when Stewart spun I somehow got a left-rear flat from that and that put us in the back all day. We were coming up through and the car wasn't handling right, so we gave up our position and worked on the car again. We got up as high as I think 11th at one point and had to go all the way to the back again with Harvick running over my right-front fender on pit road. It was just one of those days where nothing fell into place except for the finish and we're very thankful for that. I saw the 19, the 9 and the 88 had a good day, so a lot of guys right around us in the points we finished with. It's not the day we wanted. We had a top-five car and just never got there because of all the circumstances and all the hurdles we had to overcome." THE FINISH HELPED YOU OUT WITH MARK AND JUNIOR'S PROBLEM. "Yeah, we got a top-10 out of it. It was a green-white-checkered. I was looking for green to the end, though, when we pitted with 14 laps to go because you've got fresh tires and you want green race track and we didn't get that. We got a lot of yellows."

JEFF BURTON - No. 99 Roush Racing Taurus (Finished 12th) - "I thought we had an eighth to 12th-place car and that's pretty much where we ran most of the day. On that big wreck on the front straightaway during the restart, they all got bottled up and I got in the back of Rusty. That got the right-front fender tore off of it and we had to go all the way to the back, but we worked our way up to 12th. We had some help there at the end to finish 12th, but weren't quite as good as I thought we were gonna be, for sure. We can work with that type of car, though. We have some confidence in what we're doing with the bodies and stuff now, so we're gonna take those and keep improving and getting better and better." FIRST CRACK AT A GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERED. YOUR THOUGHTS. "It's gonna be different every week. A green-white-checkered here will look a little different than a green-white-checkered at Richmond. Nobody ran out of fuel, so that was OK. Mark Martin might not like it because he ran the prescribed distance and had a problem, and Earnhardt had a problem. I'm OK with it. There are gonna be winners in it and there are gonna be losers in it. At least nobody ran out of fuel. That was my big concern - that we get in a situation where we went past the limit and run out of fuel and that didn't happen."

DALE JARRETT, continued - "It's great, especially here at Indy. I certainly would like to be over in Victory Lane, but this is a great day for us." MORE ON HIS SECOND-PLACE FINISH. "Jeff was just too good on the re-starts for us. It just seemed that when his car got hooked up, the front tires gripped a little better on those first couple of corners and I couldn't get to him to get to his bumper, and I could run back to him - I didn't need that last caution. I thought I was gaining a little bit on him. But he had the best car all day. Elliott and I had a great run, great day for Robert Yates racing. Our engines were fantastic, and these are the kind of days we need." ON THE SUCCESS OF BOTH TEAMS. "The amount of effort that's been put forth by Robert Yates Racing just incredible. I know everybody out here works hard, but I know what happens at Robert Yates Racing. Even though some of the results over the past year and a half haven't shown what we've been doing, I think now we're starting to show that those efforts were worthwhile. These kind of days that we enjoy, that we can give back to Robert and Carolyn and Doug Yates for all of their hard work and money and time that they put into this thing, so we appreciate that." THIS WAS A BIG DAY. "Yeah, really big. Looking at the points, this is a really good for us. I don't have an idea where everybody else finished, but I know I had to gain on everybody I'm racing because they weren't in front of me. These are the kind of days that we need, and we need badly the next five." YOU HAD SAID EARLIER YOU NEEDED TO GET IN THE TOP FIVE. THIS IS ALMOST LIKE IT WAS DIAGRAMED ON THE CHALKBOARD, RIGHT? "This is the way we drew it up, and what our plans were. It doesn't always work out that way. We had a good weekend, we knew we had a good car and things worked to our advantage there all day. Elliott and his team helped us a little bit with our set-up, and he helped me by not running over me there at the end. So, these are the kind of days that we really like to have when we see that 88 and 38 up front." THERE WERE MANY CAUTIONS AT THE END. DID THAT HELP OR HURT YOU? "It hurt me. I don't have any idea I could've done anything with him. Elliott was actually better on the re-starts than I was, so he probably would've been better served to be in second trying to get to Jeff, but after about two laps I could start going back to Jeff, but we just didn't have enough time."

MIKE FORD - crew chief, No. 88 UPS Taurus - WHEN DID YOU KNOW IT WAS GOING TO BE A GOOD DAY? "When they put it on the schedule. Dale runs well here and I know if you just give him something he can drive, it's going to be a good day here. I've had success here and feel like I know what it takes to get around here. We've got a really good package, good cars, good motors. We've been working on them all year and getting a little better. To come here and get the best finish of the season, I think there's more to come, we just have to keep working at it." HE MOVED TO THE FRONT PRETTY QUICKLY TODAY. "We knew from practice yesterday that we needed to work on things a little bit. We made a couple of changes this morning and knew we would be pretty good. We knew we had strategy involved - this two-tire, four-tire, no-tire race track - and we needed to come up with a plan to get to the front and the race car was good so it was easy to do." MANY RE-STARTS AT THE END - DID THAT HELP OR HURT? "I felt like it hurt us a little bit. I think after a few laps we could run back to the 24 car. We started making a little ground to him. It seemed like the last couple of times we'd get a caution there, I don't really think we needed 'em. I think we would've had a better chance at winning the race without 'em."

RICKY RUDD - No. 21 Keep It Genuine Taurus - "Some of these guys behind me had four, I had two, I was trying to hold 'em off and came off the corner and more or less slid up in front of the 15, and any other lap probably would've been okay, but he decided not to give me that extra inch and we he did he drove in the back of me, turned me into the wall. It's a shame to tear up the car for racing for 20th spot like." IT SEEMED LIKE AN UP AND DOWN DAY. "It was bad or worse. It just wasn't good, it never did get good. At one time we were maybe a 20th-place car, that was probably our best shot. That's nothing to brag about. They adjusted and tried to work on it. We gave up track position all day long, trying. You know, that hurt us some. We were giving up all that track position to try to get the chassis dialed in."

ELLIOTT SADLER AND DALE JARRETT PRESS CONFERENCE

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Taurus - "I love racing against him (Jarrett). There comes a time and place sometimes you do let each other go. I remember at Michigan we both let each other go at different times of the race to try to win the race, but today was fun. I had a little bit better car at the end, but I just couldn't get the momentum I needed to get up beside him and, of course, I'm not gonna do anything stupid to take out two great race cars because I know that's one of his favorite cars he was driving today and it was one of my favorites I was driving, so I wouldn't dare do anything like that. I knew second would do DJ a lot of good in the points and third would do me a lot of good in the points. It's great just to race. We do have a lot of fun together on the race track and off the race track, so I'm just as happy for his team and my team. I know when we go into the shop Monday there are guys who will be smiling ear to ear, so that's what makes us feel the best."

DALE JARRETT - No. 88 UPS Taurus - YOU AND JEFF HAVE WON HALF OF THESE RACES. WHAT IS IT ABOUT THIS RACE THAT BRINGS OUT THE BEST IN YOU AND GORDON? "I don't know. I think once you win here you certainly get an idea of what your car needs to do and a feel for the race track and you know how to win then here. You know what it takes and what you're looking for in your car, so it's easier to adjust towards that and if you haven't, then you're still searching a little bit for that. It's just a race track that I enjoy racing - the challenge that it presents with the four different corners. Jeff, obviously, I mean you could put him with anybody else and they would have won about half of them, so I appreciate you putting my name in there. We have had a lot of success here. We have been fast a lot of times and certainly it hasn't hurt that the majority of races I've been in here have been in Robert Yates cars and horsepower plays a big part. We had great engines today as we have every time I've been here." WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU GO BACK TO THE SHOP TO MAKE THE CAR BETTER? "What I saw mostly was Jeff's car didn't seem to fall off. It wasn't like he had to start his car sideways like a lot of people were at the beginning of a run not to be just pushing a lot at the end. He could start off fast and didn't seem to fall off from there, so we have some work to do in that area - to where I think we're abusing the left-front tire a little too much. It works good for early parts of a run, so we're gonna have to go back and see what we can do to keep that from happening. It's something that we've been fighting. I think we've come a long ways with our cars, but there are some areas there that we have to continue to work in and we'll do that. We're a lot closer now. It's not that we have to go make big steps now, we can just do some small things to help us." HAVE YOU WONDERED WHY THE 24 AND 48 HAVE THE FIELD COVERED LIKE THEY DO? "It kind of ticks us off. It's one of the two of them (laughing). I think you have to look right now, and I'll be short so Elliott can talk, maybe he has a better answer, but it looks like that group has the total package right now. As good of engines as we have, they are out-horsepowering us a little bit. Aero-wise, they are probably a little bit better than we are and maybe even chassis-wise they're just a little bit better. So it's just a little bit in each area that allows them. Apparently, the two teams - I don't know if they share a lot of notes or what - but, like you say, it's one or the other or both of them up there."

ELLIOTT SADLER CONTINUED - "Yeah, I echo his words. A couple of times today when I was running second to Jeff, I didn't make any adjustments on the car. I told Todd, it was like, 'My car is good. I don't know what else I can do to really run the speed the 24 is running for that long.' I could run with him for six or seven laps and then like DJ said, his car wouldn't fall off as much as ours. So we just have to tweak on little things. I was definitely giving feedback to Todd and Robert and everybody on what I thought the 24 car was doing and how he was carrying his speed and areas we need to work on. We'll go back and crunch all the numbers and massage on it a little bit and go from there. As far as chassis-wise, springs, shocks and bars and stuff like that, my car was maxed out, too. That was as good as I can get my race car for 400 miles around this race track. We've just got to be able to carry a little bit more speed through the center of the corner. That's where I think Jeff was really getting us the most and could really stay in the gas. He didn't really have to start out sideways at all, like we all did on restarts, so we just have to keep working at it. But they have definitely raised the bar every week. If it's not one it's the other one."

DALE JARRETT CONTINUED - HAS YOU VIEW ON THE TITLE CHANGED NOW THAT IT MAY BENEFIT YOU? "Oh yeah. Sure. (laughing) I'd be crazy to say no. It changed a long time ago because after it was expained what the reason was behind it and what we were looking to do, I had never really viewed it that much. I just assumed because that's the way it had been for so many years that we raced for a season long champion. We still are to a certain extent, but those last 10 weeks - of course the battle tightened up quite a bit today with the 48 having problems I guess - but it's still gonna be 10 teams there that you're gonna have vying for a championship. So I think it has a lot of potential to be very, very exciting. Does there need to be something put beside the champion this year if it's somebody other than whose leading after 26? No, because the championship wasn't the same when my dad won his championships in '61 and '65 and Richard Petty won his in the sixties and then what he won in the seventies. I don't know if he won in the eighties or not, but things change there. They used to do it totally different, so there's always gonna be change and, yeah, I do think it has the potential to be very exciting whether we make the top 10 or not. I think that we need to give this a shot and see what happens with it. As I've said all along, if it's not exactly right, NASCAR doesn't seem to have a problem in making a change. (laughter)

ELLIOTT SADLER CONTINUED - IS THERE A HOLLOW FEELING BY NOT WINNING? "Yeah, when I walked up to congratulate Jeff and see all the excitement they're going through to go kiss the bricks and all, I mean I feel bad. But I told my guys on the radio when we had 12 or 13 laps to go we had a restart I said, 'Guys, no matter what happens, you've given me a car good enough to win this race. You've done everything you can do. I just lost a little track position. I'm gonna try to get by the 88 and have a shot at the 24, but you've done everything you all can do to get me in a position to win this race.' Yeah, I want to be up there celebrating a win, but this is by far the best I've ever run here. I've had more fun today in a race car than I've ever had in my entire life and it gives me something to look forward to. This is a new style of race car that we're building now in-house and we're building a couple more for these final 10 races. If we can run like this every week, doggone it, you all are gonna have to talk about us before the end of this year is over with. So I hope we're gonna give these guys something to worry about when we show up at the race track from now on. Today was nothing about points. Doug Yates gave us unbelievable motors. We weren't worried about whether they'd last or whatever, he gave us the most horsepower we could have. The gears and stuff we're pulling - points did not come into play with either one of our race teams today and I think you can tell that by the way that we ran."

DALE JARRETT CONTINUED - THOUGHTS ON GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERED FINISH. "It seemed to go OK. It didn't affect the outcome of the race. I don't know what happened back in the back, if they had an accident or what. I don't know exactly what the caution was for as we were coming to the line. We'll find some places that it will make a difference and we'll have probably a lot to talk about. Today, there's not much to talk about as far as the way that it affected the race. Everything was fine."

ELLIOTT SADLER CONTINUED - "I feel the same way. I think NASCAR should be happy. They had a green-white-checkered in one of the biggest races of the year and the leader didn't change hands. It didn't really affect the front guys the way we were running I think. So, all in all, it was a good day for that."

DALE JARRETT CONTINUED - DID THE CHUNK OF DEBRIS GIVE YOU ANY TROUBLE? "I saw Matt hit it. I didn't realize Jeff hit it. He obviously didn't hit quite hard enough (laughter), but I thought Matt cut a right-front tire down. I didn't actually see it until it came out from under his car. I know it messed up his day because he had a really good car. It looked more like a piece of lead to me. Somebody said something about a brake rotor, but it looked more like a piece of lead. I'm not exactly sure what it was, but I obviously didn't see it until Matt hit it." SHOULD THERE BE ANY COMPARISON TO THE INDY CAR DRIVERS WHO HAVE WON FOUR TIMES HERE? "Yeah, he's probably as good as any driver that's ever been here, I don't care how many years they've been racing. He'll win a lot more than four and I think it just shows what a great talent Jeff Gordon is. He's beat the very best here because everybody brings their best stuff. Aside from Daytona, we prepare for this race as much as any that we do and for that guy to come here and win a little over a third of them is pretty incredible. It shows they have a great team, but they have a great driver right there, too. You have to consider him one of the best drivers of any kind that's ever been here." HOW FAR DOES THIS GO IN QUELLING SOME OF THE FRUSTRATION YOU'VE HAD? "From our standpoint, yeah. The last two months have been really good for us. This year has been much better. We've been much more competitive, but we've gone now from at the beginning of the year was just kind of an average team - from 12th to 20th basically is where we've been running. Now, we're a solid top 10 team week-in and week-out. We're able to compete. On a day like today to do this in one of our biggest races means a lot to us. It gives us a lot of confidence even going to Watkins Glen next week, where I'm not considered one of the better road racers, but we've finished in the top five a number of times and the top 10 quite a few times, so that's kind of what we needed. But our team is headed in the right direction. A lot of that credit goes to Elliott and his team because there are a lot of things that they have done that have helped us tremendously. This is solid team effort making this happen, so there's a lot of gratification to come to a place like this and finish well."

ELLIOTT SADLER CONTINUED - HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE PROVING YOURSELF AT THIS LEVEL? "I think the biggest challenges I faced was being with a single-car team. I never had notes to compare with anybody else. A lot of places I'd go, I'd just try to go off a whim and try to feel it out and didn't always know what my car need to feel like on Saturday to be good on Sunday. When I became teammates with DJ I've learned more in the last year-and-a-half about racing than I've learned in 17-18 years. And the reason for that is we both had terrible seasons last year, but his attitude didn't change towards his guys, his determination - things he wanted in his race car never changed. Man, I've learned so much from him on that and places that we go I'll get ideas from him on Saturday. I can go talk to him. I love having a teammate. I can't imagine now going back to a single-car team after having a teammate that likes the same things I do. We like our cars pretty similar. Our cars were pretty close today as you can tell. I've learned a lot from him and I drive for the best car owner in the business - Robert Yates, whose willing to take time any day of the week to sit down and explain things to you about what's going on on and off the race track that a lot of team owners or people wouldn't really take their time to mess with you about. So I'm just in a perfect situation. I'm having the time of my life. I feel like I'm with the best team I've ever been with. We get along better than any team I've ever been around and, hopefully, I'll be here a long time." ALL OF A SUDDEN YOU DROPPED FROM 2ND TO 5TH. WHAT HAPPENED? "We just got loose. We put two tires on and my car was a lot looser on two tires than four. When the 17 got to me, it really made me loose. By the time I got it up, the 31 got to me and made me loose again. I about wrecked both of those corners, so I figured I'd let the 31 and 88 go by and just kind of settle in in line behind the them and heat my front tires up as much as I could to tighten the car back up, so I just lost a little track position there. That probably ended up being the turning point of our race, where we probably didn't have a shot at the win, but I wanted to make sure the car was in one piece at the end of the race. I could have maybe tried to stay in front of him, but I also could be windshield deep right now and finished 30th, so I didn't want to do that either. I was on the edge of talent level. I was about to run out of talent right there (laughing)."

DALE JARRETT CONTINUED - HOW NICE WOULD IT BE TO BE LIKE JOHNSON AND BLOW A MOTOR AND NOT HAVE IT HURT YOU? "That would probably be a different situation because he knows he's definitely in the top 10 here, so he's sitting in a very good position to where they can experiment a little bit. Still, on the other side of it, they want to be carrying some momentum into that 10-race deal, too. I would look for them to get back to some things that have worked for them. You'll leave the experimenting to test days and things like that, but they're a very good team. You can't look and say that today was anything other than I would assume a parts failure there somewhere. They still have a great race team, but that would be kind of neat. When we left here in '99, we had a pretty good sized lead, but we still had to race because we were racing right to the end, so there was a lot of racing yet to do." WAS THERE ANY RESTART WHERE YOU HAD A CHANCE TO GET JEFF? "No, he could get away in turn one. As I would get down in there, the harder I tried the more the front of my car just would not stick there. I would lose time getting back to the gas. I tried backing out a little bit early, but he could just stay in the gas through turn one. Elliott was a lot the same way. I knew from previous restarts when I was behind them, that those two cars were just quicker than I was on the restarts. Turns one and two and basically three - I could start getting a little bit of feel by turn four of that first lap, but they could just get away from me too much. I was on his bumper. He was doing different things as we came to the green - slowing us down and getting me right to his bumper, but I was able to get in the gas with him. But once we got to turn one he was pretty much gone." DOES THIS RACE SHOW DRIVER ABILITY MORE THAN DAYTONA? "Absolutely, no doubt (laughing). I think we've got 2-3-4 sitting in here and the winner will be in here in a little bit. There's no doubt that this is a driver's race track. Absolutely. The car makes a little difference, but the driver really has to...(laughing). No, it is probably more so for a lot of reasons. There are a lot of different things you can do as a driver here, but, first and foremost your job is to relate to your crew chief through practice time and your testing here what your car is doing and try to explain that. But as you get into the race, there are different things you can do, so you do really make a difference here. Whereas Daytona, if you don't have the car, it doesn't really matter how good a driver you are at times. You still have to do the job and that's not taking away from anybody that's had success at Daytona. It's easy to sit here and say that now, but it is a lot of driver ability here. That's why I put Jeff Gordon up there with the best drivers that have ever been in this sport and I think that's why you see him have a lot of success here."