Banquet 400 presented by ConAgra Foods - Ford Friday Quotes

Dale Jarrett, driver of the No. 88 UPS Taurus, is coming off his first NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series victory since 2003 when he won last week's UAW-Ford 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Jarrett, who ranks fourth on the all-time Ford win list with 30, spoke about this past week prior to Friday's first practice session at Kansas Speedway.

DALE JARRETT - No. 88 UPS Taurus - ARE YOU STILL ON CLOUD NINE AFTER LAST WEEKEND? "Oh yeah, it's been a lot of fun. The calls and things have been very special. Everywhere that I've had to go this week, it's been amazing. I think you realize just how popular this sport is whenever you get out to Monday Night Football in Charlotte and you have fans hollering at you from everywhere. Everywhere I've been people have talked about watching the race and what an exciting race it was. I've gotten a lot of calls. Texas basketball coach Rick Barnes, who is Hickory native, called and Patrick Dempsey from Grey's Anatomy, who I met a few weeks ago at California, called. It's just been a lot of cool things happening."

DID IT SEEM LIKE TWO YEARS SINCE YOUR LAST POINTS WIN? "The time span to me - 2003 doesn't sound like that long ago -- but when you look at the number of races that I've run in that amount of time, yeah, that's a long time. I really didn't equate it to being that long of a period, but we've tried and failed a lot of times in that period. Still, it goes by in a hurry because you move on. You don't look at it and say, 'Hey, I didn't win again.' You start looking ahead to the next weekend and before long a lot of weekends have passed."

THIS WEEKEND IS MUCH DIFFERENT THAN LAST FROM A CAR AND TRACK STANDPOINT. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS PLACE? "It's totally different, but this is exactly the type of race track that we're trying to turn our program around on. What has been our bread and butter for a lot of years are these type of tracks, but this year it's been the type of track that really has kept us from being a part of the chase. We just have not performed well at any of these, but we have a brand new car here. We've been to Kentucky twice with it to test. Elliott was here testing a car just like it a few weeks ago, so we feel like we have probably our best piece at a mile-and-a-half track that we've had all year. This will kind of be a barometer of where we stand and where we need to go from here, but I am excited about it."

YOU'VE WON A CHAMPIONSHIP AND A LOT OF BIG RACES, BUT WHEN YOU ESCORT YOUR DAUGHTER NATALEE OUT FOR THE HOMECOMING COURT TONIGHT IN HICKORY, NC, WILL THAT BE ONE OF YOUR PROUDEST MOMENTS? "I'm going to be proud regardless of if Natalee wins or not, I don't think that's the thing. To me, it says a lot whenever they take only six young ladies from her entire senior class and the students voted her as one of those six to be on the homecoming court. That says enough to me already about the type of young lady that she is and to have the opportunity to go back is special. People look at us and know that we fly around in jets and stay in nice motorhomes and things, and those things can be luxuries. We look at them more as necessities a lot of the times, but this is a time where it is a luxury that allows me to go back to Hickory tonight and be a part of the homecoming festivities and to escort Natalee during her big moment. I'm gonna be awfully proud, so this could be one of my proudest moments whether she wins or doesn't win."

DALE JARRETT UPDATE: The homecoming festivities Dale Jarrett was planning on attending tonight at Hickory High School have been postponed until Monday due to rain.

Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus, is fifth in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings and trails leader Tony Stewart by 98 points. He spoke about this weekend's race after the first practice session Friday at Kansas Speedway.

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus - THE ROUSH CARS LOOK STRONG HERE? "Yeah, they are. We ran really well here last year. I felt like we kind of gave it away a little bit there at the end when we had to stop for fuel after leading a lot of this race. We brought the same car back. It's a little bit different, but we're working really good on our lap times and the lap tracker looks fairly good, so we feel fairly confident that we're gonna have a top-five run."

HOW MUCH INFORMATION WAS SHARED FROM THE TESTING THAT WENT ON HERE BETWEEN THE TEAMS? "Believe it or not, we looked at their test notes and didn't really see a lot there. We came back here like we were here last year. Like I said, we led a lot of the race and we possibly had one of the best cars, but had to stop for fuel at the end and finished third, so we really started out like that. It's kind of funny because everybody tested here and tried a variety of front shocks and they ended up with the shocks we raced here last year being the best, so, really, it's four springs, four shocks and a front swaybar, so we're just tuning on the thing."

YOU'RE THE SLOWEST OF THE ROUSH CARS. WHAT'S THE DEAL? "I know it. I'm slacking (laughing). I'm just a little intimidated still by that Charlotte wreck. This is the same race car and we want to be careful. I'm being cautious and just working up to this thing because we're running really fast here. Actually, my fastest lap was the third-to-the-last-lap of the practice session with all the laps on the car. So when I want to push the throttle down and really put some wheel in it and run a fast lap the car will do it, which is positive, but I'm looking for a consistent feel lap after lap and it looks like on the lap tracker that toward the end of that session we were able to run about a tenth faster than a lot of cars and that's what we're trying to do. We want to be fast for a 25-40 lap run. I struggle sometimes as a driver, I think, with one fast lap coming off the caution, so the car looks like it's headed in the direction I want it to go."

HOW DO YOU ASSESS YOUR SPOT IN THE CHASE RIGHT NOW? "We're definitely at a deficit. Ninety-eight points is difficult to get. You figure 20 points a race and do the math, that's a lot of races and with one to go you're gonna catch the leader. That's gonna be difficult to overcome, but we're prepared to do it for sure."

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT BUILDING UP TO SPEED AFTER THE CHARLOTTE ACCIDENT? "I don't think it's really fear of jumping back in the seat and pushing the gas down. It's just that this is my best race car. I want to race this car on Sunday. They just rebuilt it. It's basically brand new. It's never been on the race track before typically, so we want to be cautious with rubs and this and that. On the fifth lap the entire car was full of smoke, so I had to slow down and smell it and it was paint. The paint was burning off from all of the exhausts, so then I got back up to speed. Just being careful about things like tire rubs and kind of working back into things and making sure the car is OK and kind of working up to it. Plus the car wasn't perfect and I'm not gonna push it if the car is not perfect. I could tell without going 100 percent that the car wasn't the way I wanted it, so we came in and just kept working on it. There at the end I felt like the car was pretty good and I pushed the issue and ran a .50. That's a pretty fast lap to run with all those laps on the tires, so that gives us a lot of confidence."

ANY REASON WHY YOU HAVE THIS CAR HERE? "This is my favorite car. It's the car I ran here last year and we crashed it really bad at Charlotte with a blown right-front tire and I wanted to race that car here. The guys have worked nearly around the clock to put that car back together and get it back on the race track. Saying it was a new car, it wasn't a new car but the front is new, the right side is new and the back is new. A lot of the race car is new - the rear-end housing, all of the front suspension and all of the stuff, so it's nearly a new car. We just want to work up to it, but it's a really fast car and I'm pretty happy with it."

WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT THIS CAR? "It turns around the bottom of the race track with less steering wheel in it. The car is like a magnet to that white line down on the bottom. It just loves to drive down there."

COULD YOU TELL IF THAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE CAR IF YOU JUMPED IN A BUNCH OF OTHER CARS? "Yeah, I could tell by about the first corner."

DOES IT FEEL THE SAME AS BEFORE? "Not quite, but I think we decided it was a little bit too tight, so we're gonna back off that now and see where we end up."

DOUG WON THE TITLE 25 YEARS AGO WITH DALE EARNHARDT. HAS HE TALKED TO YOU ABOUT WHAT IT TAKES TO BECOME A CHAMPION? "Not really. We haven't talked about that. We know what we have to do and I know as a driver what I need to do and I'm focused on it and I'm giving 100 percent. I'm not gonna let up until we're there. I feel we're gonna close in some this week in points and just continue to work on getting closer to our goal."

HE COMPARED YOUR DRIVING STYLE TO DALE EARNHARDT. "I know. A few people have done that. I'm flattered by that. I never got to race with the man much, which is unfortunate for me. I've watched a lot of what he's done in the past and learned from it. I guess it's just a style that I have, that I like to drive loose race cars kind of on the edge and that's the way I get around the race track fast. It just so happens that was his m.o. too. I think it's just people's driving styles."

Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Office Depot Taurus, is sixth in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series standings and trails leader Tony Stewart by 100 points. Edwards held a Q&A session following Friday's first practice session in preparation for Sunday's Banquet 400.

CARL EDWARDS - No. 99 Office Depot Taurus - HOW DID PRACTICE GO. "It's a nice day to be in the race car. It's real cool and makes the car handle better. The cars run a little better and run a little cooler with a little more power, and I think as long as the weather stays about the same for the race, it really won't affect anything."

ARE YOU HAPPY TO JUST GET OUT OF TALLADEGA WITH THE FINISH YOU GOT? "Oh yeah. I was really happy just to make it through Talladega. We dodged at least two big wrecks. I thought I was in them. It was like to the point of closing my eyes and wincing a little bit, so that was pretty cool to get through both of those and get out of there with a top-five finish."

EVERYBODY THOUGHT THE POINT STANDINGS COULD TURN UPSIDE-DOWN. "Yeah and as the race wore on and folks in the chase were having more trouble, it became more important to just do whatever it took to finish the race. That's what we did and I'm really proud of our team for that."

DO YOU THINK EVERYBODY IS STILL IN IT? "Absolutely, there's a ton of hope. Kurt Busch can still be the champion this year. Any one of us can be the champion. Guys like Kurt and Mark, they've been in so many points races that they've probably got a better shot being that far back than some of the guys in front of them."

CAN ANYTHING BE DONE ABOUT THE KIND OF RACING AT TALLADEGA? "They're really in a tough situation at Talladega. If they take the plates off, yeah the racing would spread out and it would be like you see it at a normal race track, but the cars would be going so fast that it becomes a real danger. The force would be so huge if there's a wreck and the chance of a car going into the grandstands would be greater. I think with the current format it would be really tough to have a race at a place that can sustain such high speeds - to have a race at relative slow speeds like we're having without all of those cars being bunched together. I don't know how they're gonna do it. I know NASCAR is doing a great job of working towards making cars safer. I think if you can't avoid the wrecks, you might as well make the cars safer and that's what they're doing."

BETWEEN BUSCH AND CUP DO YOU GET MUCH OF A BREATHER? "No, I don't get much time off, but that's all I could ever hope for is to get to race this much. It is fun. I have a lot of people around me that work really hard to make it easier on me, so it's fine for me. I spend a lot of time at the race track and a lot of time around the car, but nothing I do is difficult. It's all fun and I have a good time with it."

HOW DID THE MONDAY TALLADEGA TEST GO? "Monday went really well at Talladega. Kyle Petty, Brett Bodine and myself all got together and drafted a little bit. I thought it went pretty well. I understand people's concerns about the cars and about changing the sport and taking something away. Jack Roush has made great points about that, but from a driver's perspective I think the cars are gonna be a lot safer. At least at a place like Talladega I would be ready to race those cars tomorrow just because they're safer, so I think it's a good step forward."

DID IT FEEL LIKE A TRUCK? "Yeah, it felt a lot like a truck. In that format I don't know if there will be less wrecks, but at least the guys will be safer. It might even be a little bit more exciting and we currently have exciting races, so that would be pretty wild. It did feel a lot like a truck."

HOW WAS IT WITH THE SEAT MOVED OVER A LITTLE BIT? "It was alright, except when I kept pulling in the Busch garage - where the doors are really narrow - I kept pulling in real close to the left side door and I was like, 'What's going on here?' I didn't realize it was just because I was moved over a certain amount in the seat. It's a little bit different, and when you're running right on the yellow line and you're sitting towards the middle of the car it's kind of different."

DOES THAT CHANGE THE VISUAL ACUITY A DRIVER HAS TO HAVE? "No, actually that car - I don't know if it was just the way the seat was mounted - but I could see better out of that car than I can out of my Cup car right now, so I thought it was good for vision."

HOW WOULD THE RACING BE? "Right now if you turned them loose it would be just like a truck race at Daytona because they make such a big hole in the air. We did some stuff where we dropped back. Brett and Kyle Petty would be up there nose-to-tail and I would drop back 100 yards and I could catch them real quickly, just like in the Truck Series. I think it's gonna be very interesting. It's gonna be wild."

IS THIS A TRACK WHERE YOU REALLY FEEL YOU CAN WIN? "Yeah, this type of race track - we race on so many tracks this size and in this format that as a driver I've gotten really good at these places and I feel comfortable coming to these places. As a team we've developed some awesome cars. We went out there and I think we were third in the first practice today. It's pretty straightforward. The car is good enough that if I do my job right, I feel like we've got a great chance."

HOW IS IT WITH ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY AROUND? "It's pretty cool. I never experienced anything like walking through that Fan Zone over there. It was crazy. There are definitely a lot of folks here that are behind us and the 99 team and that means a lot. It's really cool. I told my guys this morning in the Busch car - things weren't going quite right and I got real testy on the radio - and I just told them, 'I'm sorry guys. I just want to win here so badly that I'm a little bit amped up here.'"

IS THERE A WAY TO GIVE A LITTLE EXTRA BECAUSE YOU ARE HOME? "I don't know. I try to give everything I can every week. Once we get on the race track it's always the same, but I might give a little bit more in practice or a little bit more precise with everything I do just because I want to win here so badly. I think, if anything, it's a good thing to remind me of how hard I can try."

WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO WIN HERE? "Boy, I can't even imagine. Winning here would be the biggest win of my career."