Subway 500 - Ford Friday Quotes

Mark Martin, driver of the No. 6 Viagra Taurus, is fifth in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series point standings, trailing leaders Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart by 51 points. Martin spoke about this weekend's race at Martinsville as well as the rest of the season prior to Friday practice.

MARK MARTIN - No. 6 Viagra Taurus - ARE YOU GLAD TO GET LAST WEEKEND OUT OF THE WAY? "I have to be careful about agreeing with that because I love Charlotte so much and Lowe's Motor Speedway, but I was relieved to get through that. We were conservative on things, so we should have been one of the last two blow a tire out, but as the race went - sooner or later it gets to you (laughing). All of the early birds had their trouble and sooner or later that backs up to you, so, yeah, it was good to get that behind us. Our was awesome. It was fantastic. It was a night where we had a few setbacks on pit road - not all pit stuff. We almost had a wreck on pit road." CAN YOU TAKE A RACE LIKE LAST WEEK MORE IN STRIDE THAN OTHERS? "It was easier to take because we had a little bit more to say in our destiny there than we did at Talladega. In other words, we could be more conservative on air. We didn't have to put air in when NASCAR came around with the air thing. We were already there. I don't know how many didn't, but I know a lot of them that did have, we were already there and we were already very competitive with all of those things. So it's frustrating if you get caught out. If we would have had a tire problem, then I would have been one of the ones frustrated, but at least we had the opportunity to have more air in our tires, to have more scuffs. The first three sets of tires we put on, my right rears had 20 laps on them. They were 20-lappers. Most of the time you throw them away, so we did things to try to help us. At Talladega you can't. I'm trying to explain to you that it wasn't as frustrating of a race for me as one where I've got no control over the outcome." DO YOU THINK WAS NASCAR RIGHT IN MANDATING AIR PRESSURE? "Yes, I do. I don't see a bit of problem with that. They should have been there anyway. We were." SHOULD THEY MAKE THAT A REQUIREMENT? HOW WOULD THEY POLICE IT? "No, necessarily I don't. But under the circumstances they were contemplating shortening the race. I think making the teams put air in their tires that were below what they thought they should have been wasn't as bad as saying, 'OK, in 20 laps the checkered flag is coming out.' I think that would have been horrible for everyone." WAS IT JUST CHARLOTTE OR DO YOU PLAY WITH AIR PRESSURE? "We play with air-pressure a lot. I can feel tire trouble by how hard it pulls from a tire. I know if it's gonna be a tough one or not." SO DID YOUR SENSES PLAY INTO GETTING THROUGH LAST WEEK? "I'll say this because I had an interesting question after the race. 'So and so said he was running 80 percent. How hard were you running?' I was running as hard as I thought I could get away with, the same as I do every week. It's just that this week I was further away from all the way, but I don't run these front tires like these young boys do ever - ever. Because you know what, if they ever get a long green - like at Kansas had some long greens - if they ever do get a long green, you notice I'm usually coming back. These guys don't have experience. They didn't race in the tire war. They didn't race when the tires blew out like that - a lot - and hit concrete walls. It really, really, really hurt. But forget how bad it hurts. That's not why I really shy away from it, I know that you can't win championships and you can't score points in the wall. So we tested there and we knew that the tires were gonna be a problem. In fact, I think I had one go down in testing. If I recall correctly, we had a right-front go down in testing. We saw a number of others that did. We addressed it and we did our best to address it. We usually do play with air-pressure, but I could tell how hard that place was and that it was really gonna be tough."

COULD THIS CHAMPIONSHIP COME TO YOU BECAUSE OF YOUR EXPERIENCE? "That helps a little bit, but let's talk about fast learners. Let's talk about Jimmie Johnson. He blew a right-front on lap 27 of the Busch race and he won the 500. So let's don't get all puffed up and think we're smarter than all these people. Let's remember that we've got some fast learners out here, too, and that was a little bit of new situation slightly for some of the high-tech drivers, but some of these guys learn real fast and that's why they're in the top 10. Some of the others that are real fast that didn't learn quite as quick, they aren't in the top 10. So, sure, my experience helps me. I do run my car as fast as I think I can get away with it all the time, and that's rarely 100 percent - except maybe the last 30 laps at Kansas when it was time to let it go. The rest of the time I sense things and feel things and I'm always trying to make my car better. The problem we had at Charlotte was we couldn't protect the right-front because we'd blister the right-rear. If we tried to protect the right-front too much, we'd tear the right-rear off of it. That was a concern, too, and that's the box it really put me in. Usually if it's just protecting the right-front, I can do that. But when I can't protect the right-front because the right-rear is gonna give out, then I'm like, 'Oooh, this is tougher.' So when the tire blew on lap 27 of the Busch race I called Pat (Tryson) immediately. As soon as he hit the wall I said, 'Pat, where are those 15 lappers from practice?' Always before when I do that they always say, 'Well, we already turned them in.' But I had three sets of 15-20 lappers from practice and that's six right-rears. You can make all of them right-rears, so that was six sets of right rears." SO YOU WERE ON SCUFFS WHEN EVERYONE ELSE WAS ON STICKERS? "We did go to stickers later on in the race because we used more tires than we expected with all the cautions, and we did run some stickers, but I'm just saying that immediately on lap 27 of the Busch race started making a plan based on my experience. Whereas a high tech driver is up there, 'He blew a tire.' I was like, 'Hey Pat, where are those 15 lappers. You got an 20s? That's six sets of right rears right there.' That stuff does happen, but how much does it help? I don't know. Jimmie Johnson just whooped us." WHY HASN'T THIS BEEN A BETTER TRACK FOR YOU? "I don't get along with small, flat tracks. Small, banked tracks I'm real good at." WAS IT THE SAME IN ASA? "Yeah, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, Rusty won at the first time he went there, which was a flat half-mile - a lot like Martinsville. I went there and I ran fifth, but when I went to Winchester, which is like Bristol, we won. The race tracks that I'm not my best at are the ones where the rear tires will spin. I'm not the best at a place where the rear tires spin. My specialty is momentum, not stopping and going. My specialty is momentum. That's why with I do lower horsepower cars because I don't stop them. A lot of these guys go in the corner real hard, stop, and go again real good and they get the tires to not spin, and all I ever work on is rolling across the middle real fast, which makes you spin the tires coming off and then I get to driving like a rookie and start spinning my wheels." DO YOU GO INTO THIS RACE THINKING THAT MAYBE YOU DON'T GAIN POINTS THIS RACE? "This is the first time I've come to Martinsville in years with a lot of confidence. I can tell you right now that we're gonna win on Sunday. I'm tired of being called a pessimist. It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of. We can win here Sunday and I believe that we might. We have the same car that we ran third with. We led this race for a short period of time and we ran third, and it hasn't been scratched since we ran it. It ran good in practice; it wasn't a fluke; it ran good the whole race. It's a good race car plain and simple. I have every reason to believe that we should run good again because we have the same car without a scratch on it." IT OUGHT TO BE GOOD. "It ought to be good. Now I've seen it where you come back with the same stuff and it won't work. I have seen that happen, but I have confidence coming in here that we're gonna be good."

DOES IT MATTER WHERE YOU QUALIFY HERE? "It makes me mad to qualify poorly, but it doesn't have any real major bearing on the outcome. It just irritates me because I'm a competitor and I don't understand why people can beat me that bad. I think we were 19th here in the spring, but the car was really good in happy hour and it was really good throughout the race. I feel really confident, as confident as I felt going into Charlotte, where we run good all the time and where we knew we would run good. I'm very confident." WHY DO YOU THINK THERE'S A DRIVER SHORTAGE? "I think in the past the drivers weren't harvested because you didn't need them. There wasn't as great a demand and now we have 38 or 40 really top teams and we may have only had 28 before, so I think we have harvested them for a reason. I'm a big young driver supporter. I've been high on that when you all thought there was something wrong with me. I was criticized for all that and then it happened. But right now there just aren't any that are available that are ready. There are some guys available that aren't here, but they're tied up and waiting for their opportunity with their respective contracts." IS THAT AN ISSUE WITH DRIVERS BEING TIED UP WITH OTHER GROUPS? "Obviously, that restricts one or two that might. Maybe in the old days you'd run out and get Clint Bowyer, or you might run out and get Martin Truex. Obviously those guys are pretty much ready to make the step, but they are tied up and spoken for. You have to be forward thinking and think further ahead, and even if you don't think you need it, you need to be on it because Roush Racing probably didn't think they needed it four months ago and now we need more than what we have in our arsenal." IS THERE A CHANCE YOU COULD STILL RETIRE THIS YEAR OR IS NEXT YEAR A DONE DEAL AS FAR AS COMING BACK IN '06? "My deal is a done deal now. It's a done deal with the sponsor and all of those agreements are done. If Jamie were to get loose, he would wind up in the 97 car." WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE RUSTY WINDING DOWN? THAT WAS YOU TOO A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO. "I came out of Talladega very frustrated with myself for getting into the situation of having to go forward and needing to go forward one year. But I'm really at peace with it because, and I've said before and I think everybody knows, I'm at peace with it because of what Jack Roush has done for me and for what my team has done for me. Even more than Jack Roush, these guys love me and they've never questioned me. They're behind me 100 percent and they've made compromises in their lives so that I could have success on Sunday, but the way I deal with this is I'm not dealing with next year until next year. I can't do it. I will overload. I will short-circuit. I don't know anything about next year. I don't know how I'm gonna deal with it. I don't know how I'm going to use my psychology to get through it. I don't know. I'm not dealing with it right now. I'm not gonna do it." IT SEEMS LIKE THIS IS 95 PERCENT A FAVOR TO JACK AS FAR AS YOU DOING THIS. "It started out to be the right thing for Jack Roush and Roush Racing. That was the convincing factor in the very beginning. What it would mean to Roush Racing if I would come back for one year. So that sort of soaked in and then it became apparent what it would mean to the guys that I'm calling my heroes and, to me now, that means more to me than even the Jack Roush thing. But these guys here, I raced for 25th place in 2003. You've all heard me say and I'll say it again, I raced for 25th place. These guys made a winner out of me. I'll do anything for them - anything - because we don't know that I haven't won the championship this year yet. In my opinion, they have given me the best year of my career. It has been. The performance has been awesome. We haven't backed into fifth-place in points this year." BUT WHAT MARK WANTS IN THE SHORT-TERM TOOK A BACKSEAT. "I said I was gonna put my family first and as soon as it came up, Jack Roush went to sit down with Matt and Arlene. That's how I'm getting around putting my family first because if they said no, then I wouldn't do it." SO YOU TOLD JACK TO GO TALK TO THEM? "You go talk to them. I'm interested in this, but you go talk to them because I said I was gonna put them first and I'm not going back on that. There are certain things that I won't go back on and if they don't bless it, then we're not going forward." SO JACK CONVINCED THEM? "They were fine with it. They were OK with it." YOU SAID THOUGH THAT THIS TIME NEXT YEAR THEY'RE ON THEIR OWN. "They're on their own. I promise, they are on their own. (laughing)" THIS IS SOMETHING WHERE YOU'VE HAD TO PUT ASIDE SOME PLANS. "I have been disappointed from time to time that I wasn't able to go on and do my truck racing like I planned. What I am excited about is I have already tested my truck. Kevin Harvick has agreed to move the 6 over to my truck, which I would say that is a super stand-up guy, and I have agreed to race that truck six times next year. There is a plan for that truck to run a full schedule and to build that team and have it more ready for me in '07 than it would have been in '06." AT LEAST IF YOU WIN THE TITLE THIS YEAR YOU'LL HAVE NEXT YEAR TO TRY AND BE THE BEST CHAMPION THERE EVER HAS BEEN. "Yeah because I was gonna walk away (laughing). My plan was I was gonna go truck racing, but you're right about that. Obviously, there again, that's something I really don't want to contemplate until it's over with because that's another one of those straws. I'm telling you, with all the testing and all the stuff we're doing, there's only so much that a guy can take. Right now, I really want to deal with the stuff at hand and I really don't want to deal with the day after Homestead until we get done with Homestead and that's how I'm working it. I tested last week, next week, the week after, the week before. I mean, this is by far the toughest schedule I have ever been involved in." RUSTY SAID HE WISHED JACK WOULD LET YOU RETIRE LIKE ROGER IS LETTING HIM RETIRE. HAS HE SAID THAT TO YOU? "No, not necessarily. Everybody has their own deals. Rusty and I are good friends. I have the greatest respect for Rusty and he was a lot of fun doing that together with him and sharing that together. He may not be as comfortable now that we're not sharing it. We have roots that go back 30 years, so I appreciate that. But, at the same time, this is right for me. This is right for me and I'll feel great this time next year. It'll be a joke if they ask me - totally - and everybody knows that. Everything will be fine, but the situation is just not good for me to step out of the way right now. It would leave the situation in an uproar, so there's just not a suitable solution, especially when they had a sponsor lap over, where the sponsor and the driver ended at the same time. That was not normal for Roush Racing to have set up that way. To secure the sponsorship back in the summertime, they needed me to make a commitment to them and I'm gonna do that." DOES JACK HAVE MORE ON HIS MIND NOW WITH THIS TEAM LIMITATION ISSUE? "I might be wrong, but I think that team limitation thing is just a non-issue to me right now. I know that Jack has been upset about it, but I just don't see it. I don't see it happening. Of course, I'm telling you I'm focused. I've got the laser-focus. But Jack seems fine to me. He doesn't seem more preoccupied to me. He likes that stuff. He likes arguing. He likes a good fight. He likes that stuff. He seems like he's into it, to me." WHAT HAS HE SAID TO YOU ABOUT IT? "Just in the room and in conversation that he didn't see it coming and all of those kinds of things. He's just debating why it's wrong and he hadn't seen any of that coming. It's not like he seen this stuff coming, and that's why I don't think it'll happen because there hasn't been a long-range plan. It hasn't been thought out. It's not a very easy thing to do. I'm just a little old racer. I don't know. All I know is that seems pretty difficult to me to make happen." HOW CAN YOU REPAY THESE GUYS YOU CALL YOUR HEROES BESIDES THANKING THEM OR PATTING THEM ON THE BACK? "Do something like we did at Kansas. That's the best way. You can say thanks and thanks are nice. They make you feel good, but they don't make you feel as good as standing in Victory Lane." THE MORE YOU WIN, THE MORE THEY MAKE? "Yeah, but it ain't money. That feeling money can't buy, so it's not like your bonuses or something, it's that photograph in Victory Lane and that feeling you have that you're able to carry for only a few hours. That can't be bought. In fact, no hug, no handshake - it can go a long way, but it can't go as far as that. So we've done that. We had a great time in the all-star race and at Kansas and here we are with a shot at it. We're not done. We can still win some races this year. We can win this championship. If I was leading by 50 points, I would be no more confident than I am right here because I know how hard it is to win these things. Some people don't (laughing). I know how hard it is, so if I was sitting here with a 50-point lead, I'd still be skeptical. Things have to line up. They're gonna have to be meant to be for us to win. Tony Stewart is a perfect example last week." IT'S HARD TO MAKE UP GROUND WEEK TO WEEK. "That's right. I'm a big boy. I can take a whooping, but I am not a pessimist. I just look at things differently than some guys. I'm the opposite scale of a Wallace. A Wallace is an eternal optimist, but I couldn't live that way. If I thought every race I was gonna win, I'd be brokenhearted 99 times out of a 100. I don't want to be brokenhearted. I want to say, 'Man, we've got a good car and I'm gonna give it everything I've got.' That way if I run second, I don't have to be brokenhearted. That's just how I operate. That's a long explanation to what you said, but these guys are finishing top 10 every week and even if you had a cushion it can go away. It's still a long, hard road. There are five races to go and it's exciting. I hope it's as exciting when we leave Martinsville as it is today. I hope it doesn't spread out after the race." YOU MUST HAVE A LOT OF PRIDE TO BE IN THIS TITLE HUNT IN YOUR NEXT-TO-LAST YEAR. "There's enormous pride. That's what I wanted for this year and that's why I was willing to give more of myself than I ever had before - to reach deeper and to work harder at it and all that. That's another reason why I can't deal with 2006 at this time. Today I'm too spent to say that I can keep going. I have to have a break before I can tough up and say, 'Alright, I can do that much again.' I don't know if I can do that much again. I don't want to deal with that right now, but you know what? Worse-case scenario, if 2006 doesn't turn out as good as I hope, at least I can look at 2005 and say that was supposed to be it. Nobody can say that Rusty Wallace and myself haven't gone out at the top of our game. You just can't do it, especially us, especially what we've done. No matter happens next year." YOU'VE SEEN SOME GUYS GO OUT THAT WEREN'T NEAR THE TOP OF THEIR GAME? "Yeah, and that hurt me bad. I love this sport. I love the tradition. They were the heroes when I was growing up wishing I could drive. I don't want to see that. I'm so happy to see Gil de Ferren do what he did. I'm so happy for Rusty, who may still win this championship. He's got as good a shot at it as anybody in the chase. Considering the competition, 2005 could arguably be as good as any year of my career. I won seven races in '98 and The Winston. That was a great year, but that was so long ago I can't remember it. So, to me, this is the best." HAVE YOU LEARNED ANYTHING FROM LAST YEAR'S CHASE? "We had to play the cards we were dealt last year and our hand is different that we're holding this year, so we're able to do some things differently. So, no, not really. But what I will say is it's gonna have to be a lot tougher next year because these people that didn't make it have got to be getting sick of it. Sooner or later they're gonna learn, and the ones that did make it, they're gonna want to be back in. So I'm telling you, 2006 looks scary to me because there are a bunch of guys that didn't make it that are not gonna go for that again. It's gonna be tough next year if you think about it. From 11th to 20th all of those guys are sitting there looking, 'Boy, this isn't gonna happen to me again.'" DO YOU FEEL CONFIDENT ABOUT THE REMAINING RACES? "I feel good about this race, but I feel good about all of them. I feel good about all of them, but I do feel good about this race. Even though I have struggled here, I've also had bright days here, too. Right now I feel like we've got a handle on this place." IS THERE SOMETHING THAT CAN BE DONE IN THE FUTURE IF A TRACK PROBLEM - LIKE TIRES - IS DISCOVERED DURING TEST SESSIONS BEFORE THE RACE? "You know what, it's a great question. Lowe's, everyone did everything they could. Goodyear brought the hardest tire they probably have ever made. It worked in May and we didn't have any reason to believe that it would be so marginal, even if one or two guys might have trouble. There was no reason to believe that it would be that marginal. Humpy did everything he could with the race track, short of never messing with it in the first place, and it's got to stop in the future. He's already made mention that he wouldn't do something like that again without conferring with NASCAR, and they've got to tell all these tracks that, 'you don't do anything to the race track without us supervising with you and agreeing.' So everyone did everything they could. No one foresaw it to be as bad as what it was, although there were tire troubles in practice. A lot of times the tire trouble gets less as the week goes on. That being said, I went and tested in Chicago and tore tires up in 17 laps. It was three weeks before the race. I told Goodyear about it and nothing happened. Of course they didn't have a disastrous race, but if you look back there were a lot of tire problems." MAYBE BECAUSE THERE WEREN'T AS MANY COLORFUL COMMENTS AS SATURDAY NIGHT. "It was a bad issue because it was the same thing. Right fronts were blowing out, but right rears were tearing up, and if you protected the right front the right rear would just come all to pieces. You can't protect two at once. You can protect one, but you've got to use the other one a lot to do it." AT THIS STAGE OF YOUR CAREER YOU DON'T HAVE TO CODDLE GOODYEAR. IS GOODYEAR AS PROACTIVE AS THEY USED TO BE? "It's a massive undertaking because they supply the Trucks and the Busch and the Cup. It's a massive undertaking and to change a tire after Mark Martin goes to test at Chicago and says, 'Hey, this tire isn't gonna work.' For them to change what they're gonna bring three weeks later - it can be done, but they have to be sure that what they've got laid out is not gonna work. I suppose that they weren't convinced that what they had laid out wasn't gonna work. Now, that being said, I'm not a guy that's too soft on them. I think that they should have been paying more attention with that one. I also think they had nothing to do with the Charlotte thing. They couldn't help that and they couldn't have helped it based on the test. The first calls they got from us at the test were, 'This tire is too hard. Everybody is just wrecking. It's too slick. This tire is too hard. You've got to get a softer tire.' Well, they never changed the tire and it wound up not being tough enough. That wasn't their fault." GOODYEAR DIDN'T HAVE TIME TO TEST AFTER THE SECOND GRINDING. "I don't know if they didn't have time or if they assumed it should still work because I assumed it would still work. It worked in May and they only ground where it wasn't ground. Logic says they got caught in a box there. That was not their fault. Charlotte was none of their doing."

Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Office Depot Taurus, is 54 points out of the lead in the Chase for the Nextel Cup. Edwards spoke about his hopes for this weekend after Friday's practice session.

CARL EDWARDS - No. 99 Office Depot Taurus - HOW ARE YOU APPROACHING SUNDAY, ESPECIALLY WITH THE WEATHER. "Our Office Depot Ford is really good, but that's one of the things I was asking Bob Osborne. I said, 'What's the weather supposed to be like on Sunday?' Because we kept freeing the car up and freeing it up, and if it's gonna be sunny and hot, you don't want to be too loose here and lose that forward grip, so we're hoping the weather will be just like this on Sunday and we'll be alright." YOU'RE STILL IN THIS TITLE HUNT. "We feel like we're definitely in the chase for the championship. I mean, I think everyone is in it right now, to be honest with you. This has really worked out perfectly - this chase format with 10 guys having an opportunity. I guarantee it's gonna come down to the last lap at Homestead and it's stressful. Just knowing that it's gonna be impossible to go out there and get a lead. It has been for Tony and even Jimmie Johnson. It's stressful for us, but I know for everyone other than those top 10 guys it's fun to watch." WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO WIN THE TITLE IN YOUR FIRST FULL YEAR? "It would mean the world to me to win this championship this year. That's all there is to it. It would mean the world. We have to do everything perfectly. We can't be thinking too much about that. Right now, we're here at Martinsville. We've had an awesome practice so far, so it's little steps, one foot in front of the other and maybe we'll end up there. It would be unbelievable." HOW DO YOU COMPENSATE FOR SO LITTLE EXPERIENCE HERE? "The races I have had here have been disastrous. We've had wrecks and steering problems and I've definitely screwed up my fair share of stuff here. We had an awesome test here and hopefully this is that breakthrough race where we run well here at Martinsville. I think this is really the bottleneck of our championship run here. This is the one we have to run well at to make it. After this it will be all blue sky, so it would mean a lot to win here or even run well here." HOW DO YOU COMPENSATE FOR THE LACK OF EXPERIENCE? "The way I compensate for my lack of experience here is to use my teammates, lean on my teammates' setups and talk to them. This morning I was watching the video of last year's race, just trying to analyze guys like Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart and watch what they do. Other than that you just really focus and concentrate. I try to realize that I don't have it figured out and I try to go ask other people for help." JACK ROUSH CONSIDERS YOU A WILD CARD WITH A LEGITIMATE CHANCE. YOUR THOUGHTS. "It's strange because we're in an odd situation. We did not expect, really, to be fighting for this championship. We hoped for it and we've gained ground all year. At the beginning of the year, if we would have been basing the championship off of the first 10 races, we would have been in deep trouble because we didn't know what we were doing. Now we're learning and I'm learning as a driver. The team is coming together and I think that's what he means. If we can catch up and keep a hold of this thing, and not slip and make a mistake, like we should - and show a little bit of maturity beyond our experience, we'll be alright." IS IT A MINDSET HERE AT THIS TRACK? "Generally, for me, this race track has been a little bit frustrating. It doesn't seem productive to me to let a track frustrate you, so I try to come to come to these places with a real fresh outlook. The bottom line is you have to get your car right and you have to be fast just like any other race track. We haven't been that great here, whether it's me or the car or whatever, we just haven't gotten it down. Today we ran really well. We had a good test. What I try to do is I'm trying to just come in here and be excited about this race and go out there and have as much fun as I can and focus on every corner." DO YOU OVERDRIVE OR UNDERDRIVE THIS TRACK? "My tendency is to definitely overdrive Martinsville. I'm learning to just lift a little earlier, wait a little bit and get to the throttle later and not abuse the car. It's a fun challenge. If we weren't in the midst of the championship hunt and there weren't all these people watching and all this on the line, I'd be just having a blast. But what happens here is it seems like the frustrations compound. You go in a little too hard and wiggle, then some guy gets by you and then they start to freight train you. Then you're trying too hard and you keep going backwards. I have trouble just staying calm and doing everything I can, but I'm getting better and I'm learning and I think this is gonna be a race that we really show that."

Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus, moved into third place after last weekend's race at Lowe's Motor Speedway and is only 11 points behind leaders Johnson and Stewart. Biffle spoke about his team after practice.

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus - YOU CAN EITHER GAIN OR LOSE A LOT IN POINTS AT THIS TRACK. "Yeah, you can really. Martinsville, historically, has not been my best race track. We've worked really hard here to be better. We came up here and tested. I ran 400 laps here testing and got the car really where I wanted it. Now coming back, the car isn't doing really what it was doing testing. It's kind of chattering the front tires a little bit, so we'll just work on it some more here. I think we're gonna have a decent qualifying run. I think we were 13th in that practice. If we start inside the top 15, it'll be great for us and just try to stay out of trouble the whole weekend." YOUR RUN STARTED AT THE MIDDLE OF LAST YEAR AND YOU COULD WIN THIS THING. "Yeah, here is a big race for us. Tony Stewart runs well here. The 48 runs well here, obviously. Those are two guys that we're racing real close. Mark Martin runs really good here, Kurt Busch. So a lot of the guys in the chase run really good here. I predominantly don't. I kind of overcharge the corner, so I just have to keep my head on straight and be smart the whole weekend and try to target that top 10 and keep myself in it." DO YOU JUST RUN YOUR RACE OR DO YOU WATCH WHAT THE OTHER GUYS ARE DOING. "Here, I haven't because I know they're gonna be running well. Here, I just run the best I can. If I can get out of here with a top 10 finish, I'll be very happy. The we get to Atlanta, Texas, Phoenix and Homestead, where I think I can put some pressure on the guys." HOW BIG OF AN IMPACT DID LAST WEEK HAVE? "Well, Martinsville isn't over yet, either, so there may be three wildcards in the chase. We'll see. That shook it up a lot. We knew that Lowe's was gonna be a big race for us. We crashed two cars there testing and were in some bad shape, so we were prepared for Lowe's. I kept my head on straight. I knew what I had to do all night long. I drove my car the way I thought I needed to drive it. I got a flat tire on Friday night and hit the wall. You can't do anything about that. You try to avoid that on Saturday night and not make any mistakes personally. That's what we did there and that's what we're gonna try and do here." HOW MUCH CAN THIS RACE SHAKE IT UP? "It can shake it up a great deal more. You get caught up in something and anything can happen here. You can be sitting in the pits working on your car." DID YOU DO MOST OF THE TESTING FOR ROUSH DURING THE OFF SEASON? "Yeah, I did. And what that was it was more for us. What we did, we finished up Homestead. We won Homestead and we won at Michigan, and we felt we liked that build of car. The company was kind of going in a little bit of a different direction on downforce and yaw movement and things like that, so what we did was we took a car that was a little bit different than our car, we took our car and we took and old 6 car - which we'll probably do again this year, unless NASCAR limits testing, which it looks like they may. Maybe we'll do that prior to the new year starting, but I didn't do any testing for the 6 or the 99 or anything like that. It was more for our team, to figure out, 'OK, we're getting ready to build five new cars. How do we want to build them? Let's go to Kentucky and take a variation of cars and see which ones we like.' Of course I liked the ones I won with at Michigan and Homestead with the best, so we kept going down that road." WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN WITH TESTING AND HOW WILL IT AFFECT THINGS? "I think it's gonna affect things a great deal. I don't know exactly how it's laid out yet. I'd like to see an overview of it, but, for instance, Martinsville is not one of my good race tracks. I need to come here and test. Let's say that Richmond is on there or Darlington or somewhere like that, I don't need to go there and test - or Michigan. I don't need to test Michigan because it's not gonna do anything for us. We know our shock package and we feel pretty comfortable when we go there. We need to go test where I don't run good - Sears Point, here, maybe at Bristol or whatever, but we can't do that anymore. Now you're forced to go test somewhere where you may or may not need to test. They want to restrict the amount of teams going to every race track within the company. Say Penske Racing can only test at five race tracks, or Roush Racing can only test at five race tracks, and Hendrick, but it's your choice. That's essentially what they're doing, but let us decide where we want to go. Limit us so the 99 can't go to five different ones, I go to five different ones and the 6 goes to five different ones. Let us hash it out between ourselves if we feel company wide that we need to go test Martinsville." WHAT WAS THE REACTION TO NASCAR'S IDEA OF CAPPING TEAMS? "We don't care. We're still gonna run the same as we always have. It's not gonna affect us." WHAT IF THEY SAY YOU'RE ONLY ALLOWED TO RUN THREE CARS? "We'll just move into a different building. Nothing is gonna stop us from sharing information with the 38 and 88 cars. The way we build our cars, our downforce, our shock package, our springs, our shock data - nothing like that. You can't stop a team from sharing information. We could share information with Evernham if we wanted, or anybody else. It doesn't matter who owns the car. You could own the car, it doesn't matter. We'd be in a different building. Unless they get dramatic about it, I don't know how to do that." ANY CONCERNS ABOUT TIRES AT THE REMAINING 1.5-MILE TRACKS? "No, none at all. Goodyear has got a great tire. They've done their homework. NASCAR needs to keep their fingers out of what we're doing. We haven't had any tire problems. We had tire problems at Charlotte and it wasn't because of tire pressure. I understand they were doing everything they possibly could to try to cure the problem, but they were taking a survey of tire pressure before the race and I think everybody was within reason. They could put a minimum on it, but make it so that we could still have some adjustability. At Charlotte that was a pretty high minimum. We were running one pound under that minimum, that's all. We weren't having a problem." YOU AND TONY HAVE WON THE MOST RACES SO IT WOULD BE KIND OF FITTING TO HAVE IT COME DOWN TO YOU TWO. "Yeah, certainly I'd like to add another win to that column, but a top-five finish is what we're after. Tony is a good driver. They've got a great team. They've won a championship before. We're up against a tough competitor and we're just gonna keep our head down and do the best we can. If we come up short, we come up short, but I tell you what, it won't be from a lack of effort." ALL 10 GUYS STILL HAVE A CHANCE. IT'S CLOSER THAN A YEAR AGO. "Yeah, it is and some guys have had trouble. We got a flat tire at Dover and we got caught up in that wreck at Talladega, so everybody has had a little bit of trouble and it's kept it really tight. We're gonna see years like that. Maybe next year the leader might be 300 ahead at this race. The race might be over, so you just never know what's gonna happen. It's anybody's game." MARK MARTIN SAID HE'S GOING TO WIN THIS RACE SUNDAY. ISN'T THAT UNUSUAL? "It is, but, you know what, people think it's being cocky or having a big head. 'How can you do that?' I said at California I'd be leading the race by lap five. When you have a great race car and you feel good about it and you've got all this energy and adrenaline going, and you feel like you've got an awesome race car, you feel invincible. That's how you need to feel if you're gonna win. If you don't think you're gonna win and you don't think you're gonna run good, you're not." MARK NEVER DOES THAT. "That big trophy is getting closer and closer and he probably has a great race car. The car feels really good for him. He's got a game plan. They've got their game face on. He's ready. I'm gonna go in there trying to win the race. I don't think I have as good a chance at winning as some of these other guys, but I'm gonna try and get my way into the top five. If I'm in the top five, I don't care who wins." IS THERE AN ADVANTAGE FOR GUYS WHO WERE IN IT LAST YEAR? "Maybe slightly. They've kind of been down this road and know what to expect, but, really, I've been in tight points races for the championship before and it's just a matter of human error - no mistakes. If you get a flat, you get a flat. If somebody hits you from behind, you get hit from behind. But the main thing is you personally have to deal with the pressure and deal with the things going on around you and do the best you can." DID THE TRUCK AND BUSCH TITLE RACES HELP FOR THIS CHASE? "Yeah, I mean I lost the championship by eight points and a lot of people forget about that. I lost by eight points and that was devastating to me. I learned a lot from that and I probably learned more from losing a championship by eight than winning my other two."