Dodge Charger 500 - Ford Friday Quotes

Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 60 Charter Taurus in the NASCAR Busch Series and the No. 99 Office Depot Taurus in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series, held a brief Q&A session after rain postponed Thursday's practice and spoke on a variety of topics.

CARL EDWARDS - No. 99 Office Depot Taurus - WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED THE MOST THIS YEAR? "You keep learning things and keep learning new things and I go, 'Wow, I never thought how that would feel' or what it would take to deal with that. One of the things...is just how fleeting success or how fleeting it can be here in this sport and how precise everything has to be to have a really great run. We had great success at Atlanta and then it was two weeks in a row - at Bristol I made a mistake and set us back and we had a bad day. And then at Martinsville we had another bad day. I realized really quickly that, wow, you really have to stay on top of things. You have to give 100 percent all the time. You can't rest on any success that you had even if it was 10 minutes ago. If something great happened, you just have to go out and keep doing your job. I think that experience is just as valuable as learning the race tracks and learning the setups and things like that. It's something that I'm getting better at just in the last month or two. I feel like I've become a little bit more of a better competitor as far as keeping my emotions level and understanding what I have to do so that I don't have those bad days. There's a fine line between trying just the right amount and trying too hard." IS JIMMIE JOHNSON GETTING A BAD RAP ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED AT TALLADEGA? "To be honest with you, I haven't read anything or seen anything about it." SOME GUYS HAVE SAID HE'S AN IDIOT. "I don't think Jimmie Johnson is an idiot. I think all of these guys are amazing. I've made a lot of mistakes. My car was tore up in a wreck on Saturday. Our Charter Busch car was tore up and destroyed, which ruined our string of top 10s and that's very frustrating. It was a wreck that I didn't cause, and then on Sunday we had another wreck that I didn't cause that tore up our Cup car. I actually thought about it after the race. I thought, 'Man, somebody caused those wrecks and I feel bad for that guy because a lot of people are gonna point fingers.' But we all cause wrecks. We all make mistakes. It's been my argument from the beginning that it's really difficult to understand sometimes, for me, I think after a couple of weeks people all realize that we're all out there trying to do our very best. I don't think people intentionally wreck anyone very often. I think everyone is just trying their hardest. I mean, heck, we're all allowed to make mistakes. That's just the way I feel about wrecks and stuff like that." HOW ARE YOU GOING TO HANDLE BUSCH AND CUP DUTIES WHEN THE SERIES SPLIT? "For me personally, what I'm trying to do is frankly the experience that we've so far this season - we just talked about having the success and then having a couple of bad weeks - I feel like I'm getting a real realistic view of what I need to focus on as far as just finishing the races - just get through the races and get the points we can get. As a driver, what I'm trying to do is just prepare for those races by going over the notes from the way we've run there in the past. Like Pocono, just go over any test notes. We're gonna go test there, so we'll focus real hard on that - go over any test notes that any of our teammates have had in the past there - and then just do my best to be in shape and to be mentally prepared to go back and forth and miss some practices. I brought my computer this week with my steering wheel and all that just so I could sit in the motorhome and practice some more racing. I'm just doing everything I can do." WHO WILL HELP YOU? "Hank Parker, Jr. is gonna be the guy that helps us with the Busch car. To be honest with you, I'm just going week to week. When we get about two weeks out from that we'll have a really definite plan on how we're gonna approach that weekend and which sessions we're gonna prioritize. If there is rain somewhere and it's a questionable weather situation, we're gonna have to determine which track is a priority to be at and I think with Bob Osborne and Brad Parrott we'll be able to make good decisions. When I did that with the trucks last year, it was a new experience and I really enjoyed it a lot. I think that's gonna help me a lot."

Elliott Sadler, driver of the No. 38 M&M's Taurus, comes into this weekend's race fifth in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series point standings. He spoke about Saturday night's race after practice and before qualifying.

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Taurus - JIMMIE JOHNSON SWEPT BOTH RACES HERE LAST YEAR. WITH JEFF GORDON'S SUCCESS HERE AS WELL, HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK THEY TALK? "I think a lot. I think their driver styles are similar and it looks like their cars all look the same each and every week so they probably run the same setups. I'm sure Jimmie has been listening to Jeff a lot. I know I would if Jeff Gordon was my teammate. I know I use my teammate a lot for this place, too - Dale Jarrett. He's had success here and it's smart. I just think they've probably taken what the 24 had learned here in the past and took it a step further and became a great race team that runs good here. I think that's what every team tries to do - you try to feed off your teammates, take what they've got and try to make it better and then go from there." DO YOU THINK THE CLOCK IS TICKING ON DARLINGTON? WILL THE DAY COME WHERE YOU DON'T RACE HERE ANYMORE? "I hope not. I think the fans have spoken out by selling this place out. That's the best thing the fans can do. We talk about the history of this place and the prestige of it and if fans keep selling it out, I think we'll keep coming back. I can't wait to see what the night race adds to this race. I think it's gonna be fun for the fans. It's gonna be fun for the drivers and time might be ticking, but we still have a few races left here, I think." WHEN YOU TAKE THE SHORTER SPOILER AND SAFER BARRIER DOES IT MAKE THIS PLACE MORE TREACHEROUS THAN EVER? "We're more out of control this year than I've ever been here at Darlington. We've got a really good car, but the first 10 laps I made it felt like they brought the Daytona tire here. The track is just getting old and gray. You have a lot less room to slide around because of the SAFER barriers, but we like the SAFER barriers. It's gonna create great racing, I think. When have you ever come to Darlington and seen a boring race. You can show highlight after highlight of this place, whether they had new asphalt, SAFER barriers, no SAFER barriers, and then we add a new element of nighttime racing with the lights, I think you're still gonna see a great race tomorrow night." WHO DO YOU THINK THE FAVORITE IS THIS WEEKEND? "I don't know. I think the 16 has been running good everywhere they're going. I think the 24 is on a roll right now, so I would say the 16 and the 24 are definitely the two cars that everybody is looking at in the garage." HOW WOULD YOU ASSESS YOUR TEAM RIGHT NOW AT RYR? "I think we're pretty good. I mean, we've got two teams in the top seven. Other than Roush and Hendrick, I think we're the next strongest team. We're making leaps and bounds and we're gaining on them and closing the gap. My guys are working harder than any other team here. We've been testing everywhere the last two weeks trying to get better and I think we're catching up with everyone." DOES TESTING WEAR ON YOU? "It does a little bit, but I'm still young so it hasn't affected me yet." WHERE DO YOU NEED TO CATCH UP WITH OTHER TEAMS? "When you look at Roush and Hendrick, they've got so many engineers. They have seven or eight engineers where other teams have only one or two because they have so many teams. They've figured out this Goodyear tire package and they've figured out this short spoiler a little bit sooner than everybody else because they have the manpower to do that. I think us as a team has worked our butts off. It seems like they're working 20 hours a day to try to close that gap. We're in the wind tunnel all the time. We're testing cars all the time on short tracks and mile and a halves to try to get our program better, and I think we've closed the gap. I think we had a great test at Charlotte the other day and we've come here and we're very fast here at Darlington. My guys have done a good job to make us a competitive team and I think we're gonna be able to show that from here on out."