DHL 400 - Ford Post-Race Quotes

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Taurus (Finished 5th) - "We were a little bit too tight there at the end. That's probably the driver's fault. I was getting a little bit too loose on long runs and I asked them to tighten it up and it might have been a mistake. But I'm so proud of these guys. My record speaks for itself. I've never been in the top 10 here an to come in here and run in the top three and four all day long. I've got the best teammate in the world. He helped me so much yesterday on what my car needed to feel like yesterday to be good today. I'm proud of everybody - M&M's, Pedigree and Masterfoods, Snickers, Combos, Ford, UPS - everybody has been so great to us. It's great to get two top fives for Robert Yates today." IT LOOKED LIKE ONE OF YOU GUYS WERE GOING TO HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN. "I did. I saw him coming and I knew I didn't have anything for the 12, so I pulled over and let him go. I was pulling for him. When I saw the 12 go to that side I was hollering at him, but he couldn't hear me to try to block out, but I know DJ is very happy. He's had a very frustrating season. The last two races he has been on the money - a top five car - so we've learned a lot about each other and these two race teams and we're gonna get our stuff together. This is the time to do it right here in the stretch month and this feels good to run so good with both of us." WHAT ABOUT THIS NEW FORD ENGINE? "Yeah, I gave Doug Yates a big high-five when I got of the race car. Awesome horsepower all day long - turning a lot of rpm's - so it was a great test session. I know they can't wait to get both of these motors back and look at them. Matt was right there behind me and Kurt Busch, so all the Ford motors did a great job today. Doug and Jack and everybody should be very proud of themselves."

DALE JARRETT - No. 88 UPS Taurus (Finished 3rd) - THIS IS WHAT THIS TEAM NEEDS. "Yeah, it really is. Two good weeks in a row as far as running-wise and being competitive. That's what we've got to do. Mike Ford and his guys have got things going really well. I was hoping to give my dad a real good Father's Day present - another victory here - but I think he'll probably be pretty happy with this the way things have been going." HOW DOES THIS FEEL? "Really good. It's just nice to be competitive, that's the main thing. That's two weeks in a row that we've run in the top five with the leaders and that's what you've got to do before you can expect to win races. You have to put yourself in that position." IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE A TOP FIVE. "It's been a long time since we've been in this position. I hadn't had to stop on pit road many times, so it's a nice feeling and one I could get used to again." IS THIS A NEW CHASSIS? "This is an in-house chassis - it's one of our in-house cars. I've run these in the past the last couple of years - as a matter of fact when Todd and I had a lot of success that's what we ran - but Mike was more familiar with the Hopkins stuff and that's what we ran at the beginning of the year, so we started testing this and there's a lot of good things about it. I think that helped us a lot." DID YOU PICK UP SOMETHING IN THE ENGINE ROOM TOO? "Definitely. The new cylinder heads are a plus. They let us pull the gear that we need to pull and that's the main thing. I don't know about the horsepower, that doesn't concern me, but I knew that we were getting beat off the corner because we couldn't turn the rpm's the other guys were, so our new cylinder heads are allowing us to do that."

KURT BUSCH - No. 97 Sharpie/IRWIN Taurus (Finished 11th) - "We got behind the eight-ball when we got involved with the 31 and the 77. We battled back. This is usually a good track for us, but the setup never came around because we had so much damage on the car." TO COME OUT WITH A DECENT FINISH AFTER THAT WAS PRETTY GOOD. "Yeah, it wasn't bad. The team is just plugging away and giving their heart. We need to come up with better finishes, but it's hard to do that when you've got a damaged car, so next week is a road course and we'll go and have some fun."

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus (Finished 23rd) - "I was trying too hard over there. The quarterpanel was gone and the decklid is up in front of the spoiler, so I lost a considerable amount of rear downforce I'm sure. I was on the throttle hard trying to get out of there and I just spun it out. It was just my fault, but the car was messed up in the back spoiler area. These cars are just so aero sensitive and I just didn't have enough downforce in the back there. We would have finished 11th there even after coming back from the spin, but I feel bad. It's kind of crazy that the tie-rod bent like that. I went way down on that apron and missed the 31, but when I turned back the whole left side of the car hit the race track really hard and it bent the left-front tie-rod and towed it in about three-quarters of an inch. That's why it wouldn't run. Once we got the toe set back, it would run but the car was kind of skinned up here and there. It's unfortunate. The National Guard guys did a great job today and we appreciate all of the support the National Guard gives. We're gonna get them a win one of these days. We're gonna keep working at it." A TOUGH WEEKEND ALL TOGETHER? "Yeah, it was a tough weekend altogether, but we'll keep working at it." WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE 20 CAR LATE IN THE RACE? "He was in there. I'm sure he didn't mean to do it. It looked like he got loose underneath me and came up the race track and got into me there. I have to talk with him to find out what happened, but I'm pretty sure it probably wasn't intentional."

RICKY RUDD - No. 21 Keep It Genuine/Motorcraft Taurus (finished 12th) - "We were off all day, but they kept working on it and changed the air-pressure around a little bit at the end and the old car got a little bit racy at the end. We needed one more stop, but we finally got some track position. If we would have pitted for one more set of tires, it would have been risky so we stayed out and finished 11th or 12th. It was better. It wasn't a perfect day, but it's better than we've been."

DALE JARRETT PRESS CONFERENCE - "It's been a while. I didn't even know if you still had these sessions or not (laughing), but it's nice to be back. I can't honestly say that when I was sitting in my car before the race that I had a car that was capable of leading some laps and possibly having a chance to win. I thought we were OK yesterday in practice. We didn't seem to have the speed on fresh tires, but our car didn't fall off a lot and we saw a lot of that today. That seemed to work to our advantage. I really wanted to see the latter stages of this race go caution free. I think that would have worked to my advantage a little bit more, but we made a choice there. We adjusted on the car all day. We started out a little tight and then we got it really good. Then it got to be a little loose so we adjusted back and we got it maybe just a little bit tight and then at the end it got to be just a tick loose, but that was just simply from basically driving the tires right off of it. It was a really good day. We had good pit stops. That's something we've been struggling at, too. We had a new tire changer on the rear today and he did a really good job. Mike does a good job of calling the races and for those of you that haven't heard or know, this is the in-house chassis that we raced last week. I think Mike and I both agree that this chassis does some things that we've been looking to do. It drives better and gives me a better feel of the car to where I can relay information back to him. It was great to have a chance to win at the end. Ryan did a great job and then the 9 car, I don't know where he came from, but he was fast. I knew when he got that lap back that he might become a factor. I'm somewhere along the way I have or will benefit from that lucky dog or whatever you call that stupid rule, but I just don't agree with giving people laps back. I think the 12 car got his back, so both of the guys that beat me were a lap down at one time. I don't know what that says." WHAT DOES THIS DO FOR YOUR CONFIDENCE? "It means a lot to us. The last two weeks have been really good. We started off the season having some decent runs, but that's what they were - decent. The last two weeks have been a lot more competitive and I think it gives us a lot of hope for the rest of this season to be competitive and that's what we need to be. It's not a matter of thinking about getting in the top 10 or anything like that as far as the points. If you run good, that all takes care of itself. It's a matter that we as a team are re-building and working our way back, so these type of days help a lot." DO YOU SEE SOME LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL? "Yeah, I mean it definitely helps. I think it's been, as I said, we started out running OK and we thought we could build on that, but the last two weeks - as a matter of fact we've had some good tests over the last month I'd say and that's helped us a lot. I think we have a true direction that we're going in now and that gives me a lot of hope. This is good for our race team and it's good for me to show that if I have a race car capable of doing it that I can do it. I'm sure everybody had those questions when we were running bad, so I think this shows that I can still get the job done." THE TYPE OF TRACKS COMING UP LIKE POCONO, INDY AND CHICAGO AND KANSAS CITY - THESE ARE THE KIND OF TRACKS TO HAVE A LOT OF HORSEPOWER AND GOOD SETUPS. "Yeah, and tracks that I enjoy and tracks that I've won at. That does make a difference. As I was explaining to somebody a little earlier - you go to a place like Pocono and here, where I've been fortunate to have some success, you know what your car needs to feel like. That gives me a better idea of what I'm really looking for when I can find that. When you've had that success it's good to go to these type of race tracks. I think the new cylinder head - I don't know about horsepower - I'm sure it's some more, but the biggest thing is it allows us to turn the rpm's to race with these other guys. That's where we've been getting killed, so it allows us to run in that direction. The tracks that are coming up - obviously the next two weeks are a road course and a restrictor plate, so we'll hold our own the best that we can at those. Then we have Chicago and Loudon after that, which is a track we've had success at too, so we've got a lot of good tracks coming up that I'm really looking forward to. It couldn't have come at a better time for us." THE CALL TO GAS-AND-GO WAS A KEY POINT. "Yeah, we came in and got fuel. We had only been out there four or five laps on tires and just in what we saw yesterday our car worked pretty good if we only had that many laps on the tires - that we were OK. We felt like we needed a little track position at that time and that got us up front and allowed us to stay there the rest of the day. I think that's part of the decision at the end, too, to stay out there. We felt like maybe we could make this happen, if we could get away, that it might just be a two-car race and it might give me the chance that I needed to beat Ryan. Kasey and the other guys were coming strong. Who knows what would have happened if we would have got tires. We had a good car, but we weren't the very best on new tires, so we thought this was our best opportunity. Again, I just got too loose. I ran really hard, I guess during that stretch when there was a little less than 20 to go, and I caught back up to Ryan because it looked like at that time that if it went green from there that we had pulled away from everybody else. I thought if I could get there and put some pressure on him that it looked like his car might start to go away a little bit after we ran for awhile. So I probably ran it a little bit hard at that time to be able to have anything left at the end."