Banquet 400 presented by ConAgra Foods - Ford Post-Race Quotes

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus (Finished 3rd) - "Track position was everything. We weren't getting the fuel mileage our teammates were and we had to come down pit road. The lap traffic was so tough to deal with today and my car got a little aero tight once I back there, but it really hurts to give them away like this. You don't get cars like this very often, but those were the cards we were dealt. There was nothing we could do and that was the decision we had to make. It's unfortunate. The National Guard car was really strong today and the guys did a great job in the pits. There were no mistakes on the race track today, there just wasn't enough time."

KURT BUSCH - No. 97 Sharpie/IRWIN Taurus (Finished 6th) - "I was disgusted with myself. I made a mistake coming off of two with somebody behind me. It was the same thing I did at Michigan and California, but we rebounded well to survive today. We had about a 10th-place car, maybe 12th or maybe eighth, but with the pit sequence and the fuel strategy that my car had, we were able to pull out in front and maintain that position at the end of the race when it counts." HOW WOULD YOU ASSESS HOW YOU'VE DONE SO FAR? "It's a good start. This was the fourth race and a pivotal race for us, just to make sure that we got it under our belt cleanly and that we could have the setup that would help us get to the front." YOU LOOK SO CONSISTENT. "It was a great finish. We rebounded well from the problem and I'm disgusted with myself for making that mistake again - spinning off of two and luckily not hitting anything, so we survived. We just had the fuel strategy that brought us up to the front. Otherwise, we were about a 12th-place car."

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DEWALT Tools Taurus (Finished 17th) - "We just ran terrible all day, really. We just got lapped that one run and got lucky and got a quick caution to get that lap back. We just didn't run good. We probably should have pitted the second-to-last caution to try and get some track position back, but we just never could get running." HOW MUCH DID THE DAMAGE ON PIT ROAD HURT EARLY ON? "Not much. We just really missed it all day. We just ran bad all day. We got lapped that one run and worked to get our lap back and got back on the lead lap. There were two cautions where we probably should have pitted and we stayed out and that hurt us. We had to pit with 13 to go and there just wasn't time to get back up there. We just didn't have a good car. We just weren't balanced all day. It was just really difficult to drive."

RICKY RUDD - No. 21 Keep it Genuine/Motorcraft Taurus (Finished 2nd) - I THOUGHT YOU HAD HIM? "I did too. We had to come from a long way back. The restart before that somebody wrecked us and hit us in the back end and turned us sideways and I didn't think we could come back. We were coming back and all of a sudden the caution came out and we got lined up good. I got hung up with the 23 car on the inside. The guys got me on the break and I made up a lot of ground. The car was very, very fast. Michael McSwain and everybody did a great job on this Motorcraft Ford today. Man, this is just like a win. I would have loved to have won it. We gave it all we had. I wasn't gonna take a cheap shot at Joe because I know he was hungry too. It was just a great day. I can't say enough. Man, I'm just excited about having a good race car under me again." WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LAST LAP OR TWO? "I got under him, but I broke loose and slipped. If I didn't check up a little bit, I probably would have taken him and I both out. I said I would just re-group and make another run at him. I made another run at him coming to the finish line, but I just ran out of laps."

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 Pedigree/M&M's Taurus (Finished 4th) - "It's a great points day for us. We needed to turn the momentum around. We've had two bad weeks in a row and we said if we could come here and Charlotte and get two top fives, we could get our program back to where we need to have it and back in this points contention. It was great. I had a lot of fun racing Ricky and that old 21 car. That was pretty cool. I let him go there at the end and wanted him to get that 01 car. That would have been cool for the Wood Brothers, but it was a great, great run for all of us. I'm really proud of my guys and we'll go to Charlotte." PIT STRATEGY PLAYED IN YOUR FAVOR. "Yeah, that's why Todd is the man. We had great pit strategy. We had like an eighth or ninth place car all day and we stayed out and got the right cautions. He made the right call and the Wizard of Oz/Pedigree car did pretty good." YOU'VE HAD SOME BAD LUCK OF LATE. "We've had some bad luck at Talladega and at Dover, where we had some problems. We've kind of dug ourselves a hole, but this race isn't over with. I know Kurt Busch and his guys are doing a great job and he's staying out front, but we've got to try to beat him every single week. We can't wait for them to have hard luck. We've got to try to beat him every single week and put ourselves in that position like we did today. We'll keep trying to do that."

MARK MARTIN - No. 6 Viagra Taurus (Finished 20th) - "We had a top-five car there. It was really a wasted day or a wasted effort by everybody based on not having enough gas mileage to be able to do it there at the end. We had a good enough car. It was really strong on the long runs and we just got 100 cautions there at the end. We were never gonna make up the track position that we had to give up. We were gonna get back to the top 10 if it would have gone green for 50 laps at the end, but it didn't happen." WAS THE CUT TIRE THE TURNING POINT OF YOUR DAY? "Yeah, that got us behind. I would assume that the same trouble would have happened to us on the gas mileage though."

CARL EDWARDS - No. 99 Roush Racing Taurus (Finished 22nd) - YOU SPUN EARLY BUT DIDN'T HIT ANYTHING. "Yeah, it was really loose and then somebody got on the outside of me there and it got really loose. I thought, 'Man, I'm not even gonna try to save this.' It's probably the only place on the race track where you can go ahead and spin out and not hit anything. That set us back a little bit, but we were definitely a 20th or a 25th-place car all day. It was just too loose." YOU SAID THE CAR WAS TOO EVIL AT ONE POINT. "Yeah, when you're trying to drive down in the corner and the rear end tries to pass the front end, it's just hard to go real fast. These guys are all so good that if you're off just a little bit, it looks like you're really slow. We were off more than a little bit, so we were really slow. But to come out 22nd with a backup car, that was awesome. That was a good run for us." A GOOD EXPERIENCE? "Oh yeah. The experience was great. The fans are the greatest here. They welcomed me so warmly. I had fun going dirt racing. The one thing my crew chief said was, 'Now you know the difference between our best car and our not-so-good car,' so that's a good lesson to learn."

RICKY RUDD PRESS CONFERENCE - WHAT ABOUT THE LAST TWO LAPS? "Really, you have to go back to about three restarts before that, but, anyway, the end of the race was pretty neat. We got hung out on the restart because we fell back to third because of what happened a couple restarts earlier and we had a lot of ground to make up. I got hung up on the outside. My car would work really good on the bottom and it wouldn't work on the outside. I got hung up beside, I guess, the 23 car was trying to get laps back and we got hung on the outside. The 38, Sadler, and Joe just sort of drove away. They got a half-a-straightaway ahead on us by the time I broke out of the traffic. I didn't think we could catch them, but we were able to catch Elliott. I said, 'Gosh, we're running out of time. I don't think we can get to Joe,' and all of a sudden, here we are. We were right there on his bumper. Our car never faded and Joe's was fading away. Had we run four, five, six laps, there's no question, I think Joe's car was fading pretty hard at that time. We caught him and I got underneath him, but when I caught him, I got there and got to his door, but my car was in a little slip. When you throttle up when you're slipping, you're gonna spin out and that would have taken out me and the guy beside me. Joe and I, neither one, needed that type of ending to a great day for both of us. There's next week, but I'm just tickled to death that the Motorcraft Taurus is tuned up. Fatback McSwain, Hoyt Overbagh, and all the Wood Brothers had us running today. It was fun." COMMENT ON YOUR TEAM'S REACTION AND ABOUT THE ARMY, AIR FORCE AND NATIONAL GUARD FINISHING 1-2-3. "First of all, this team has been through a lot of struggles. The Wood Brothers are the greatest people in the world and probably some of the greatest people in this garage area here. They deserve better and we just weren't getting results. We tried with the team up in Stuart (Va.) and tried with the team down in Charlotte. The alliance with the Roush organization, I certainly thought that was gonna bring good results and moving the team to Charlotte and it just didn't work out. I'm not really sure why the Roush engineering shared support didn't work, but it didn't work. We didn't plan on that leaving when Fatback McSwain came on board, and that's the key right there - Fatback McSwain coming on board, which goes back to when Bobby Labonte's team decided to let Fatback goes his separate ways. That's really when our team started to run better is the day that happened and the gears got turning. The telephones were ringing off the hook trying to get Fatback to come on board and I don't know if he's the greatest crew chief in the garage area, but the combination with me and him just seems to work. When he came back we saw instant results with him stepping into cars that were already built - not built to his liking, but already built - and having to step in and take what you've got and make it go good three-quarters of the way through a season. I think it's remarkable, so we've seen results. We haven't necessarily seen it in the finishing results, but we've seen it in practice and qualifying. We're in the top 15 in qualifying every week. In happy hour practice we were fourth yesterday, so we're seeing results that we haven't seen since I've been with the Wood Brothers and it looks like it's only gonna get stronger. I'm just really pleased. I think that's one reason, maybe running second doesn't hurt as bad knowing how far we've come from way back. I think that's really cool about the armed forces. It would have been nice if the Air Force was out front leading the way. They usually lead the way when we go to war. They do all the bombing and stuff like that, so it's unfortunate the Army beat us today, but they had a good car. I think it's a lot of fun and I think it's kind of ironic, really, that it's settled between the armed forces." WOULD YOU HAVE PUSHED IT FURTHER IF THIS WAS 1989 OR EARLIER? "I don't think so. I've been in some hard races with people in the past and, generally, when it happens you get together. I don't usually look for trouble. I'll race people clean if they race me clean and that's sort of how I've done it. I've gotten into it in years past, quite a few races with Earnhardt, but I didn't usually strike first but I repaid the favors along the way. Racing Joe was good and clean and hard. To me, shoving a guy out of the way is not a way. It's easy to spin somebody out. I don't particularly think it takes a great deal of skill to wreck somebody. I'm not gonna race that way. I'm gonna race somebody hard and clean, but if I can't pass him legit, then I won't pass him I guess." JOE BROKE HIS 54-RACE WINLESS STREAK. "I don't think it could happen to a better guy. He hasn't had an easy go of it. That car has been running stronger and stronger each week. It's got those Hendrick motors under the hood and, man, they're fast in the straightaway, but, I tell you, we had something for them today with our Yates horsepower. We were just as good in the straightaway, I thought. I think it's good for Joe. It's well deserved. He hasn't had it easy and I can't think of a better guy, other than, that should have won it today." ARE YOU COMMITTED TO HANGING AROUND THE TEAM MUCH LONGER? "That's a good question. To me, right now, racing is fun. I've got a great group of guys that I enjoy being around. There's no pressure. Eddie Wood, Len Wood, these guys are just everyday guys. Fatback McSwain and Hoyt Overbagh, those guys, I enjoy being with this team. I don't feel like there's an immediate timeline when I can still run good now. We've run bad for a year and a half and, believe me, it weighs heavily on your mind. All of a sudden you start thinking, 'Is it me?' All of a sudden you hop in a good race car that goes around the corner and you get those questions sort of re-answered and it sort of rejuvenates you a little bit and makes you want to hang around a little longer." DO YOU FEEL YOUR JUICES FLOWING WHEN IT'S GOING GOOD OUT THERE? "I don't know of any race car driver that enjoys running 25th every week or 35th. I didn't go racing early in my career to be back in the pack, but I will say this, after being back there for about a year and a half, there are some darn good race car drivers that drive the wheels off their cars back there, but they just haven't gotten the right opportunities yet or it's not clicking for them. All of that being said, I don't enjoy riding around just to be out there to start another race. I've always enjoyed the thrill of the hunt. OK, we didn't win it today, but we were in the hunt. It could have turned out different. We could have won it, but we were right there in contention and those are the days and that's why I drive race cars for a living. I live for those days. Granted, they have been few and far between in the last year and a half - not since the Yates days - but, hopefully, we'll have that back on a more regular basis." WHAT HAVE BEEN THE KEY CHANGES? "We got two key guys - the one everyone knows about is Fatback McSwain, but we've got the engineer that's been with him. Hoyt Overbagh, from Richmond, Virginia, he worked with me when I had my own team and we shut it down. We moved Fatback and Hoyt and six or seven other guys over to the 28 Yates team. That right there is sort of the nucleus. Hoyt and Fatback just work good together and you've got to have that pairing. It's all about personalities and blending and making one not feel like their toes are being stepped on by the other guy. They have a good role there. They work things good. Hoyt doesn't care about being the front guy. He's a low-profile guy, but he's smart as heck. He's part of our success today, along with Fatback and all the rest of the guys, but those were sort of the ingredients that we were missing." WHAT IS IT ABOUT HOYT? "He's just a savvy guy. He's probably the oldest engineer in the garage area. I don't know if it's the combination - I work good with older guys. Bob Reilly was the last old engineer that worked with and he was a pretty crafty guy and it's sort of the same way with Hoyt. I don't care if it's young or old, he's just a low-profile guy that contributes to the puzzle of making these cars handle, but he doesn't care about the limelight. I think it's just a unique combination with him paired with Fatback that works. I don't want to over-analyze it or under-analyze it, but it works."

GREG BIFFLE AND KURT BUSCH PRESS CONFERENCE

KURT BUSCH - HOW DID YOU NOT HIT ANYTHING WHEN YOU SPUN? "That's just it. I closed my eyes and turned the wheel and don't know how I didn't hit anything, but I'm disgusted with myself for making the same mistake that I've made in the past. I did the same thing today as I did at Michigan and California earlier this year. With a car right behind me, it takes the air off your spoiler and around you go, especially on fresh tires. I just got too aggressive early in that run to gain positions or to move my way forward, so I was just disgusted with myself. But our team rebounded the proper way. My crew chief said, 'Come in here, kid. I'm gonna fix your car and then you can go drive it' because I was trying to drive the thing loose to maintain track position later into a run, but he tightened it up and gave me the good handling car that would take us to the end."

GREG BIFFLE - DID THE CAUTIONS HURT YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING? "Yeah, a little bit. One, it bunched the field back up, so it kind of closed that gap back down. When the 21 got sideways down on the apron, Joe got a huge lead on everybody, but I was just back there with all the traffic. My car was a little bit too tight and I hadn't run in traffic all day, except for about three-quarters of the way through a tire run when my car was balanced pretty good and everybody was real tight and then I'd get into lap traffic. When I ended up starting 15th on the grid, I should have freed my car up a little bit so I could cut down toward the bottom. I used up a lot of tires trying to get by the lapped cars and trying to get by like the first six, eight guys until I got up to Kurt. Then once I got by Kurt and got in some clean air I could run down those guys, but the car, I just used up a lot of the front tires. I was a little bit tight to catch them, but I think given maybe six more laps they probably would have been in trouble."

KURT BUSCH CONTINUED - COMMENT ON AVOIDING POSSIBLE DISASTER TODAY. "We avoided a big pitfall today just trying to get our car to handle better. We tested here for two days and thought we had a great car, it was just very nervous around other cars with fresh tires and that's just something we have to continue to work on. To be able to come away out of that spin and not hit anything, I knew at Kansas they have grass in the infield underneath the race track and as soon as you hit that, it's just like hitting ice and you end up in the inside fence, so I was very lucky to keep it on the race track. The damage was minimal as well as to the other competitors, so we got our fresh tires and Jimmy Fennig made that adjustment because I was still just trying to drive too loose of a car and away we went, but it is key to dodge an event like that today."

GREG BIFFLE CONTINUED - DO YOU BELIEVE YOU HAD THE BEST CAR AND IS THIS THE WIN THAT GOT AWAY? "Yeah, I mean, I don't want to act like a baby, but I am disappointed bad. I'm pouting about it, but that's the way it is. It's not very often, and Kurt will tell you about this - look at his run at Loudon - it's not very often that you get a race like that where you're just gone all day long. I mean, it just runs like that all day long and then for something to happen and not win, it just burns. It's acid in your stomach. It's unfortunate, but those are just the cards we were dealt today. We just couldn't make it and that's the way it goes sometime."

KURT BUSCH CONTINUED - IS THIS MORE A CHASE OR BATTLE FOR SURVIVAL? "I believe it combines a few elements that we're not used to with the way that we've all watched NASCAR racing. There's a regular season of 26 races to position yourself and that's done by cool consistency. That's done by reaching out and trying to work on different setups and if they achieve success, then you polish on those. If you're struggling, you try to reach out and maybe experiment with things in those 26 races to prepare yourself for these 10. Now it's a matter of executing every race perfectly and being able to bounce back quickly from mistakes and not drag your feet on making decisions. With the consistency that we've had, along with our win - to win one out of four races - that's pretty good on average. Of course, today's race was the first race not won by a chase contender. It really has so many elements in it that you can't call it a chase or a playoff. It's a matter of what it takes to get 10 races put together consistently and running competitively. You can't just go out there and finish eighth. You have to lead laps. We've led laps in every event so far and you have to gain as many points as you possibly can. This is almost like a cut-throat deal and if you do have a bad race, you have to hope that the other guys have a couple mediocre type races to get back in it, or that they have a problem. I would say it's a frontrunner's type race. If you get out in the lead and you're running and you continue that pace that you can set and look at the finish line and know that it's not out of reach, then you can get there first."

GREG BIFFLE CONTINUED - COMMENT ON THE ARMY, AIR FORCE AND NATIONAL GUARD FINISHING 1-2-3. "That's kind of unusual, isn't it? That's neat. I just wish I could have gotten up there and mixed it up a little bit. I wish they would have extended it 10 more laps and we could have had a race. I saw a flashback from yesterday coming - getting a chance to get up there and race with Joe for the win. I felt that I could beat him today. I felt I could beat Joe today. I didn't think I could beat him yesterday, but I felt like I had the car I could beat him today with. We're excited to have the National Guard and Subway and all the sponsors on the race car. It's kind of neat to see the support from all of our armed forces to the NASCAR community." WHAT ABOUT NON-CHASE DRIVERS NOT GETTING RECOGNITION. IS THAT ACCURATE? "The coverage is of the chase for the Nextel Cup. That's what everybody is talking about. I finished third and got out of my car cooling off there and there wasn't anybody standing around - not one guy. So I made my way back to my truck, changed my clothes and I'm ready to go. Then they tell me I've got to go to the media center, so I came over to talk to you guys. That's what it's about. That's what NASCAR wants is they want the coverage to be of the 10 drivers, so that's what the coverage is of." IS THERE MOTIVATION? "We want the best finish no matter what. It's a motivator I guess as well, but we want to finish the best we can. We want to win the next six races and that's what we try and do every week."

KURT BUSCH CONTINUED - THOUGHTS ON LEADING AFTER 4 EVENTS AND ON A NON-CHASER WINNING TODAY? "Each race is a new outlook on what you need to do for the day. I looked at the first three races as being the start for our competition for the Nextel chase for the cup. Now we're in the meat of it with races four, five and six, and then we've got the final three - seven, eight, nine - and then you hope you're up by 150 going into Miami so you don't have to stress it too bad. But it's gonna be out of control. Each race that gets closer and closer to the end we might see one guy eliminated. We might see two guys eliminated, but there are still gonna be those non guys that aren't in the chase for the cup that are running competitively that you're gonna have to beat. They're gonna be out there just like the other guys are. There's a competitive field of over 40 cars that can win and it's no different if the guys are locked in or if they're not in - you've got to compete against them and hope that each race goes the way that you had planned. Whether you tested there or whether you didn't, there are gonna be guys that have their strong points at each of these events that we have coming up." YOU'RE SATISFIED WHERE YOU ARE? "Definitely. To mark off the 30 points that we were behind going in and to be thirtysomething ahead today - wherever we are - this is a great start to what we need to do. This race was a huge hurdle that we had to overcome. I tripped over a few on the back straightaway and then we were able to clear those hurdles and make sure that we got back up towards the front at the end of the race for a nice, solid finish. We rebounded well and we're ahead, so we've got six more to go." WHERE DO YOU SEE THE FINAL CARS IN TERMS OF WHERE THEY'RE POSITIONED NOW? "Each race there are gonna be guys that bump up and there are gonna be guys that slide back. If we continue the pace that we're on, we're gonna be OK to set a nice pace for people to shoot for. With guys that are eighth, ninth and 10th, if they have a good day, they've got a great opportunity to do good the next week. There are so many cars involved in this that you worry about your own program." BUT FOR THEM TO GAIN, THE GUYS IN FRONT OF THEM HAVE TO FALTER. "For those guys to make a gain, that's why we give you guys the answers of we're just gonna go out and race our car because that's all we can do. We can't control what the 9 car does. We can't control what the 48 does. We can't look at the way that other guys race. We just have to go and race our car and where they finish is where they finish, whether it's due to fuel strategy to bump guys up at the end of race to the front such as today. Greg Biffle had the fastest car, but he didn't win the race. We were fortunate enough to have enough fuel and make it to the end and we finished sixth." YOU WOULD HAVE THE LEAD ANYWAY REGARDLESS OF THE EARNHARDT PENALTY. DOES IT FEEL BETTER KNOWING YOU'VE DONE THIS ON THE TRACK? "It feels very good to be able to be ahead by what I'm looking at is four points, but those four are just one position out on the race track next week. We've got our work to do. Charlotte is a great track for us to attack and try to run good on. With the way the 48 runs there, that's the guys that we're gonna be looking at next week. He's very competitive and very fast. It's a feather in the crew's hat to know that we're a championship contender. We are leading by a legitimate four points - 29 as it stands - so it's something to where we want to beat him on the race track and not have that circumstance that came up last week affect anything in the future." ARE YOU THINKING IN A WORSE CASE SCENARIO THE APPEAL WOULD HOLD UP AND THAT'S WHY YOU SAY 4 POINTS? "I'm looking to have over 150-plus going into Miami so there's no problem whatsoever with our points and the way they are now. Just viewing it, I don't think it will be overturned. It is unfortunate that something outside of the race track and the car equated into a subtraction of points. I know how Victory Lane ceremonies are. I've actually mentioned the wrong sponsor in Victory Lane by accident. You're so pumped up with adrenaline and you're so excited with what the program is that you've got to do in Victory Lane that he just lost track. That was a standard that NASCAR has set - their precedent of what needs to be discussed in Victory Lane - and in the world we live in today it wasn't acceptable, so we move on to next week. He was penalized and I know he doesn't like what he did."

GREG BIFFLE CONTINUED - IS IT HARD TO KEEP TRACK WHERE YOU ARE WITH THE STRATEGY? "Yeah, it was a different race. The 19 and I were on pit road when the caution came out and we were well in front of the leader. We had a big lead. People had just pitted when the caution came out. It was a little bit of a confusing race, but it wasn't for us because it seemed we were always in the lead and pretty much in control most of the time. We only lost track position one time when there was three tail end of the lap cars in front of us and then a couple of other guys. But for the most part, we were in the front all day and that's a nice place to be, I can tell you that, but it just wasn't there at the end."

KURT BUSCH CONTINUED - WHEN YOU'RE ON THE RADIO ABOUT HOW YOUR CAR ISN'T HANDLING, DO YOU WISH SOMETIMES YOU WEREN'T SO HARSH? "I don't know what you're referring to, but just communication amongst the team has to be positive all the time. To be able to communicate to the crew chief in a fashion of excitement or as far as just kind of being humble about the car, the crew chief has to depict what the crew chief is feeling. When you give him a little bit of emotion like, 'You need to help me fix my car,' then he's gonna work on it in a fashion that's a bit more aggressive. You scale things out. You can tell him that the car is tight on a scale of one to three and you say, 'three,' and he knows he's got to get on it. But Jimmy Fennig and I have a nice relationship to where I can get on the radio and say, 'It's really, really tight. You've got to fix it now,' and he'll get on it pretty quick." DO YOU START THINKING ABOUT WHAT IT MIGHT ME TO BE CHAMPION? "I believe it's too early to look at championship aspirations and to work on the program that you have at hand, and that's to go to Charlotte this week. We're qualifying on Thursday and racing on Saturday and we've got this task at hand right in front of us. So many things can happen so quickly. Elliott Sadler was eighth in points today and bumped up to fourth with a good run. We could be leading going into next week and coming out of it or we could be back as far as fifth. With this Nextel Chase for the Cup, we've been given a second opportunity, but we know we can lose it just that quickly."