NASCAR : Five Fords Post Top-10 Finishes At Charlotte

MARK MARTIN – No. 6 Viagra Taurus (Finished 5th) – “I really hate it. This car was capable of contending for the win, but we just struggled all night long. Everytime we turned around. We had problems on pit road and just about crashed on pit road. Everytime we turned around we’d just about get there in position where we could go race for it and then we’d have a major setback – not a major setback but go back to 10th or 12th. These guys have given me a golden opportunity here. I hate we didn’t do more with it, but it’s good to get a top five. That’s what you need to do and maybe we can win some more of them.” SOME GUYS SAID THEY RAN 85-90 PERCENT. HOW ABOUT YOU? “We did what we needed to do. We made it to the end, but we finally figured out you couldn’t go more than 20 laps without a caution anyway. I don’t think everybody was running eight-tenths at the end there.” LAST WEEK YOU DIDN’T THINK YOU HAD A CHANCE AT THE TITLE, BUT YOU’RE ONLY 50-60 POINTS OUT HALFWAY THROUGH. “Well, it’s a step at a time. You don’t go from 113 back to having a shot at it. We got a little closer. I wish we could have done more. I swear we had a car that could contend for that win, but it was good enough to come back from 10th or 12th several times. It was tough passing out there, so it was a good run for us. I really want to thank Pat and all our guys for giving me this opportunity.” WHAT A BIZARRE RACE. “Yes it was. We had a great run. I guess fifth is a great finish, but it’s a little bit disappointing with the car that we had. It was a contender and everytime we’d get in position where we might be able to go up and challenge we’d have a setback. We had a number of problems and had to come back from 10th or 12th everytime we turned around. It was a great car and a great effort, so I’m really proud of this race team. They’re giving me a shot at it.”

KURT BUSCH – No. 97 IRWIN/Sharpie Taurus (Finished 2nd) – “It feels good. We didn’t have anything really out of the ordinary happen to us. It was a nice, solid day. We lost some spots. When everybody decided to use the high groove I was like, ‘Where are they going?’ So they went to the front and we learned that. After that we just played our strategy to only race hard when we had to and that was towards the end to gain that track position. Then two tires or four, I wasn’t sure, but Jimmy Fennig, I stick with my crew chief all the time and it was a great run for our Irwin Industrial Tools Ford. We race the 48 like that here. It’s his home track. He runs hard. Chad Knaus has had problems getting through tech lately we’ll see if he gets through today.”

CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Scotts Taurus (Finished 10th) – “To make it into the top 10 was OK, but we had a better car than that. We were just too tight and just destroying the tires. Even though we were tight, the right rear was just gone every run. I don’t know what we can do differently. This was just a survival race. I’m glad we made it out of it.” DID YOU JUST THROTTLE BACK AND DRIVE DEFENSIVELY ALL NIGHT? “Extremely. I don’t think I ran one lap as hard as I could. That’s just the way we had to race.” HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR POSITION? YOU GAINED QUITE A FEW POINTS ON FIRST PLACE TONIGHT. “That’s awesome. We needed Tony to have that one bad night like that, so it’s gonna be a heck of a tight battle. If we can come out of Martinsville with another top 10 that will be another one in the back, but it’s OK.” YOU LIKE TO OFTEN SAY RACING IS A BLAST, BUT WAS THAT A BLAST TONIGHT? “This was not a lot of fun to be honest with you. It just isn’t. You’re risking your best car and a good headache. You’re just trying to make it for 330 laps.”

KEVIN LEPAGE – No. 66 Peak Fitness Taurus (Finished 21st) – “Coming from four laps down this was just a great day for the Peak Fitness guys. Greg and all the guys did a great job just working on this race car. We had a couple of tire issues early and just got us down a couple of laps. We kept working on it and got the lucky dog and just rode around. To come out 21st, I think this is the best finish of the year for this team. We were hoping for a top 20, but we were just a little too tight there at the end. We had to tighten the car up because the right-rear was showing loose and burning the tire up. We had little vibrations that we didn’t know what was going on, so we just came in. I hate it that I’m not going to Martinsville. We’re going for a pole at Atlanta, but I’m disappointed we’re not going to be there next week. But these guys are awesome. Four great races. Four great qualifying efforts and finally a decent finish after our qualifying efforts.”

RICKY RUDD – No. 21 Motorcraft Genuine Parts Taurus (Finished 9th) – “We just had a real tight race car when we started. We had to come from a long way back. Our tire strategy was to put on four all night, whereas a lot of guys got temporary track position by putting on two. We did that right at the end. I think we came in like seventh or 10th and came out with the lead. We were sitting pretty decent on the restart and I guess Nemechek got up on the outside of me, but then I didn’t know that the 48 car ran into us. I just thought I blew a left-rear tire and I pulled out of the way and was coming into the pits. Then Dave said, ‘Hey, the 48 got into you.’ When he said that I was already down here in three limping on the apron, so then I had to take off and go again. I thought for sure I blew a tire. I had no idea he got into me. But it was a good, solid run. I’m a little disappointed.”

ELLIOTT SADLER – No. 38 M&M’s Taurus (Finished 27th) – “It was a wild night. This was by far the best car I’ve had in seven years of racing in the NEXTEL Cup Series. Again, Doug Yates and the engine shop gave us some great horsepower and the car was just unbelievable. I was just trying to run around seventy percent all night, take care of my tires, not abuse them by running too hard. It’s unfortunate, you try to race other cars like you want to be raced and to get taken out by a lapped car is disappointing.” WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO HAVE TO DO ABOUT THE TIRES? “I think they are just going to have to bring back a harder tire, maybe like the tire we run at Texas. We’re just going too fast around here. The speeds are too much for this tire. In the start of the race, I wanted to run hard through one and two to get my five bonus points by leading a lap but it just abused the tire too much to run a hundred percent. Our tires looked pretty good all night but we just had to be really careful with them.”

POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCES

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus – “It was kind of a different night. This is the first kind of racing I’ve done like this. It’s sort of like restrictor plate racing where you just kind of hang out and wait. That’s what we did. We waited around and drove our car 75-80 percent. I had an ultra-fast race car. There at the end running 28.60s, that was unbelievable how fast the thing would go. We just didn’t need that last caution. I was really coming on Kurt and the 48 and felt like I had a good enough car to get by maybe one or both of them, but we had a lot of cautions tonight. It was just unfortunate that sucker had to come out the end. I thought we had a good run making ground forward and just kind of ran out of time. It seems weird you drive 80 percent all night and then when you do run 100 percent you run out of time. It’s kind of ironic, but it was a good night for us overall. Third place, we can’t complain. Second last week, third this week.”

KURT BUSCH – No. 97 IRWIN Taurus – “I was just rolling through most of the night worried about which tire was gonna blow out – the right-front or right-rear. We just had to set a pace. We had a good game plan and at the end we saw the yellows start to come towards our direction of strategy, whether it was two tires or four tires. The time when we made up the most distance tonight was when we were on two tires, but then when we took that right-rear off it had about 18 blisters on it, so it was a tough night to know when to go hard. We did that when we needed to and I thought it all turned out well. We just came up a bit short racing Jimmie Johnson, but he’s strong here. He’s the guy to beat. It’s like when we go to Bristol we have fun just racing hard and that’s the way you’d like every race to end up – 500 miles of strategy and then to have a shot at the win.”

GREG BIFFLE CONTINUED -- SHOULD THE NEW MOTTO BE ARRIVE ALIVE? SO MANY PEOPLE WRECKED TONIGHT IT WAS LIKE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. “I have to tell you that a lot of us were concerned about the speed of the race track and all that jazz. I think, to be perfectly honest and you can ask Kurt, I think he’ll agree, the racing itself was pretty good or it could have been pretty good if we could have drove like we normally drive. Like there at the end when we were running flat out, if we could run like that and if the tire wouldn’t have blistered, I think it would have been a good race. It’s like one of those new race tracks where the things got a ton of grip and then it breaks loose like it did on the 20, the 38. It did to me twice, I almost crashed. Kurt was right behind me. I had to gather it back up and he gave me room to get that done, but, other than that, I think it was pretty good racing. We could run side-by-side a little bit and top and bottom groove, but the tire was a problem. We just couldn’t keep the gas down. We had to baby-foot the throttle and lift early and just kind of run it medium to not abuse the right-rear tire. For us it was the right-rear we were having problems with. If the tire issue wasn’t there, I’m not complaining about the race track at all. I think it put on a good race, really.”

KURT BUSCH CONTINUED – “I’ll just add a couple comments. I’m looking at a black-and-white picture of probably when the track began existence in the sixties when asphalt was coming up and tearing apart everybody’s radiator. There are some days when you just put that mindset and go. ‘Well, I’ve got to survive today. I don’t have to race hard until it’s time and if my radiator is still in it and if my right side is still pretty straight and I’m in position I’m gonna go for the win at the end,’ and today we were pretty close.”

GREG BIFFLE CONTINUED -- DID YOU FEEL THE CHASE WAS GETTING AWAY? IS IT A NEW CHASE? “You’ve got to be confident and I felt like I was gonna be able to make up the 88-point deficit, I really did. I know we run good at Atlanta. I know we run good at Phoenix. I know that I won at Homestead last year. I won at Texas earlier. So I knew 88 points with four or five races anything can happen. I was being optimistic. I was trying to be excited about being able to catch him. Of course there is doubt when you see him leading or he qualifies third. Of course it’s a big deal, but it seems like it’s getting closer.”

KURT BUSCH CONTINUED – DO YOU STILL HAVE SOME HOPE IN THIS THING? “We’ve got some hope because we didn’t have a blowout tonight and we dodged some wrecks and ended up with an OK finish. That’s the first chase race where you could say nothing went wrong, so it gives us optimism about the next few. We hate to see guys have trouble, especially Tony. There are guys like Biffle that we still have to race against, Mark, Kenseth. After Talladega, we survived and finished eighth and I asked my fiancé, ‘Where did we jump up in points?’ She looked at me and laughed because we were still 10th and we were still about 200 out. So we’re now 140. It’s still a long ways to go. We just still have to do our job and hope for some good fortune for our own team.”