Chevy Rock and Roll 400 - Ford Post-Race Quotes

DALE JARRETT, No. 88 UPS Taurus (finished 26th/currently 15th in standings) - "We looked like we weren't ready for this. I did a terrible job apparently in practice of relaying what we needed with the car, and they couldn't adjust, so we ran back, that's all you can say." WHAT ABOUT THE NEXT 10 RACES FOR THIS TEAM? "We'll go like we always do - go try to win races, and hopefully we'll improve and get better and be good as a race team from this point forward, try to finish 11th in the points and, again, try to get to victory lane before this is over."

MARK MARTIN, No. 6 Viagra Taurus (finished 5th/currently 8th in standings) - "I got to fly my family home tomorrow, so I've got to be a pilot tomorrow, but when I get home I'm going to lay down." WHAT ABOUT THIS RACE? "We didn't run as good as we wanted to, but we've got an awesome Viagra team here. This team, we're in. It's been the hardest thing I've ever done in my life." ON THE REST OF THE SEASON. "We have a lot of good race tracks coming up where we can contend to win. And regardless, we're going to go out and win us some more races here, and that's what really special - making the Chase, number one, and, number two, winning races. We did one of those, and let's go win some races and worry about the points when they stack up." SO THE GLASS IS HALF FULL? "It's half full right now. We had to make that cut, and it's been a tough one. I love my team. I don't know if you guys scan us or not, but I bet I've told my team in 20 of the 26 races after the race I bet I told 'em I loved them 20 times, I do. I love my team." DID YOU KNOW WHERE YOU WERE IN THE STANDINGS THROUGHOUT THE RACE? "They never gave me, until I finally asked for it. Later in the race, I was driving my brains out, I thought I was fine. I thought if I finished sixth or so, you know, that nothing could go wrong, but they never told me until I asked, and then all they'd say was that I was okay, we were fine." ON HIS FANS. "I want to thank the fans. The 6 family has been incredible, and I appreciate them pulling for us, no matter what, when it's good or bad." HOW DO YOU FEEL? "I'm going to sleep tonight." WITH THE HURRICANE AND ALL, WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SLEPT? "I think I told you guys, it's been a real rough week on me. I haven't rested. I didn't have anxiety about this race because we came up and did a test with a brand-new car and it was rocket-ship fast. But just with the hurricane, we didn't go back, I wasn't comfortable. You know, I like my routine. I missed every workout this week. The whole week I haven't worked out because we had things going. It's just been a rough week on me. I'm going to get back in my routine. We'll get home tomorrow. Whenever we get home, I'm going home and I'm going to lay down and then Monday morning I'm going to get in the routine. I'm afraid I'm going to load my family up and go somewhere else again. At least the pressure's off. We kind of had the competition talking about yesterday after Happy Hour. That's the kind of performance we expected. The race got going and it was like, 'Oh, it's not all that great.' And there wasn't anything wrong with the car. I don't know why it didn't run it like it ran in Happy Hour and in the test, but we raced our guts out. We got a top-five with that car, that's fantastic. Pat Tryson is the man. Now we're whatever we are, 40 points behind instead of 400, and we're in, and I promise it will be a lot less stressful for here on out than it has been trying to get here, because you had to race great race teams, just like racing for a championship, just to make that cut. Mayfield, Kasey Kahne, these guys, man, they ran. It was tough. I don't recall, of course, we went to the garage a lot on Sundays, and that really made it tough, too. But we had to race a bunch of good race teams. I just don't recall having to fight as hard as Pat and I have had to fight, just to get in to something. We just didn't want to be excluded. Now, we're in. Even when the championship went down to the line in 2002 at Homestead, and we ran so good and actually Tony didn't, I still was happy, because we did everything we could do. We finished third, a top-five every week, we closed it down from 100 points to 30 or whatever it was. It was a great effort, and that was a good thing. I could never have been satisfied with being excluded. That would've been a much more empty feeling than getting beat. Because one of the reasons I wouldn't have felt good about getting beat is because we broke down. If we hadn't have broke down, we'd be in the top five in points. This is a top-five race team, I believe."

CARL EDWARDS, No. 99 Roush Racing Taurus (finished 6th) - "It was pretty wild. We got pretty fortunate. We had that tire going down, to spin and not hit anything, and then to get our lap back, that was wild. I'll tell you what, racing out there with all that's at stake for those guys is really hard to do. It was very, very stressful. I can't imagine for those guys like Jamie and Ryan and Mark and Kasey, and all those guys. It about wore me out trying to figure out who to race hard and who not to. I bumped Jamie one time and he flipped out, and I didn't understand it until I thought about it a little bit, so it was just tough to race those guys when there's that much on the line." WERE CLOSE TO ANY OTHER OF THE WRECKS? "Oh, yeah. We were really close to a couple of 'em. Just really, really fortunate to come out sixth. That's good. That's very lucky for where we started the day."

GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 National Guard Taurus (finished 8th) - "It was a wild night. The National Guard car was pretty good. We were just kind of taking it easy at the beginning, and we were running up in the top 10, and thought we had a car that we could finish in the top five with. Didn't know if I had something I could win with unless we worked on it some more, and then unfortunately we got caught in that wreck. And, man, the guys, I can't believe they kept that car on the lead lap - all the repairs they did. Got a new valence on it, you know, overheating in traffic, 265 on those greens. I had to get out, go to the back, get it cooled back down enough to get back racing again. I noticed on that restart, it was 265 so I just had to get out of the way. I couldn't race with the guys. I have to say it was a pretty good day overall."

RICKY RUDD, No. 21 U.S. Air Force/Motorcraft Taurus (finished 21st) - "We had a brake issue from practice yesterday, and they went back to Stuart and worked on some stuff. It was kind of a freak deal. The thing would shimmy and shake so bad, it would shake the steering wheel out of my hand. That was really most of our problem because then I couldn't use the brakes after a few laps. I just had to get off the brake pedal, and when I got to the center of the corner the car was going too fast, overshoot the corner, so we were just a little stuck. There wasn't a whole lot we could do to that worked on it. Never could get it straightened out. We tried a new brake system that we ran at Watkins Glen and it worked good there, we figured it work good here but it didn't work out that way."

ELLIOTT SADLER, No. 38 M&M's Taurus (finished 17th/currently 6th in points) - "This has been, by far the most fun week I've ever had. I've been racing some types of racing for 22 years, this is the first race in 22 years that I've actually got to race and have fun and not worry about points and looking at what can happen, what can happen. So, we tried to go for the in tonight. We tried to gamble on pit stops. It bit us, but it was fun. I can't wait to get to playoff system started. My pit crew's as good as anybody on pit road. My crew chief is the winningest one in the garage. He's won a championship a few years ago. We're looking at it like we're the favorite going into this thing. We've got some good cars lined up for it. We've been very consistent over the last few months and I think we got a great chance to win this championship." WHEN DOES THE REST OF THE SEASON START FOR YOU AND THIS TEAM? "It starts tomorrow. We got get our California car ready for New Hampshire, we're going to put our best foot forward and go up there and see what these boys have got for us." WHAT DO YOU EXPECT TO HAPPEN? "I think you're going to see going. I think a lot of people are not going to give and take as much because every point. We're only 25 points out. We can go and have a top five and we can come out with the points lead - that's what I love about this championship chase, and it should be fun. Anybody that has not enjoyed the last few months trying to get 15 teams trying for 10 spots shouldn't be in racing. This has been unbelievable excitement. Even tonight, I couldn't believe how many times it changed hands - who was in, who was out. It should have been a lot of fun for the fans, the media and everybody." DID YOU KNOW WHO WAS IN? "I was trying to keep up with it, but once the 48 got knocked out, I gave up counting. I wasn't very good in math in high school, and I just, 'Ah, forget it.' I didn't even know until I got over here. I was like, 'How many cars in? Twelve or 13?' and they go, 'No, 10,' and I went, 'Cool. Alright. Only nine guys I gotta beat.'"

MATT KENSETH, No. 17 DeWalt Power Tools Taurus (finished 28th/currently 5th in points) - "It's been kind of weird year, you know, everybody hasn't really worried about the points every week, the top few guys, so that's been sort of different. Everybody stayed kind of bunched up all year anyway. I'm happy we're down to 10 weeks to go. It's been a long summer, and I'm glad that we're into the playoff deal and glad that we're only 30 points behind or whatever it is. I wish we were closer than that, but glad it's closed back up and hopefully we can not make mistakes, have a good start and have a chance at the championship." ARE THE 17 AND 6 AS COHESIVE AS THE 24 AND 48? "Well, we've been running more similar stuff lately. We used to not be, and the 6 has been running so strong that we built some cars like them and I've been paying a lot of attention to what Mark's been running for setups and I've been learning a lot from that. And, that helped us a lot tonight. I ran a lot of stuff tonight that he ran at his test, and O thought we had a car that could've run with the 19, and that part was encouraging, so hopefully our cars will work similar the next few weeks and we'll be able to use some of the same information." ARE YOU HAPPY MARK MARTIN GOT IN? "I'm thrilled Mark got in. It was kind of cute to watch him. He was so stressed out all week, to watch him it was kind of cute in a way, even though he's only got a couple of years left and I'm really happy he's in and have a shot for the championship because I think that he's really the darkhorse. He's been running so good the last few months and watching him at Michigan for me, even sitting in the car after he passed me, I was like a race fan, watching and cheering him on because I haven't seen him run like that for three or four or five years, you know, that good, so I was pretty happy for that. I saw him this morning, it looked like he was going to throw up in the drivers' meeting. I told him everything was going to be okay, and he looks a little more relived now." ON BEING OFF ON FUEL MILEAGE. "I don't think we were really that far off. We didn't pit that last time, and what happened is we left the wrench in. We pitted under green right after the 19 did. We were leading, and I passed the 19, we pitted two laps after him, that was all the gas we had, but that's where we knew we were. And, left the wrench in, had to come back in and lost two laps, so that's really what did it for us." WITH THIS BEING A SATURDAY NIGHT RACE, DOES THE REST OF THE SEASON START TOMORROW OR MONDAY? "It started. It started the day after the banquet last year, really. I mean, you're always preparing cars all year and trying to everything the best you can and be running good. It's not like you don't try all year and you run bad and then all of a sudden you're just going to run great for 10 races. You're going to see the same guys running good and the same guys running bad. It's just like Week 2 or something right now. It's like going to Rockingham in February. Everybody's still all bunched up, you don't really know who's going to be the guy yet, but you can look at the year, how it's gone and kind of get some trends and patterns and see the guys that are going to be to beat."