NASCAR BGN: Drivers discuss performanceat New Hampshire
Posted By Terry CallahanMotorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
May 13, 2001
JEFF GREEN-10-Nestle Nesquik Ford Taurus (Finished 4th) - YOU CAME IN FOR FUEL ON LAP 18 WHILE THE REST OF THE LEADERS STAYED OUT. "We decided that we would come in as soon as we made window, fuel window, we decided to come in and get our fuel. We figured everybody else would follow us, but nobody did and it kind of made it hard on me to come back through there, but we knew that we were going to make it and everybody else had to stop. We had the race in our hands, I think, but we had the caution. I'm glad for my teammate, Jason. He works as hard as we do and he deserves it. It's another great day for us. My teammate won and we finished fourth. We didn't gain any points, we lost a couple to Kevin, but we'll be OK. He will have his bad days. He hasn't had many bad days yet. A fourth isn't a bad day; it's pretty good for us." IF IT STAYED GREEN, WOULD YOU HAVE WON? "I think so. I don't know how much time those guys were going to have to spend on pit road, but I know that coming down pit road that we would have a lap one them, or a good three-quarters of a lap on them. That was our plan from the get-go, and as soon as the caution came out, we knew that we could go the rest of the way on fuel. This place goes green a lot, and it was going to work into our hands. We were just waiting for everyone to pit; we were biding our time. We put tires on at the end under caution just to get track position because we were so far behind in track position. We needed four to go to the front. Still, fourth's not that bad." WAS A TWO-TIRE STOP THE RIGHT CALL? "Oh yeah. It's so hard to pass here. You saw that when I got in the back. I had a much better race car, but when I was trying to pass those guys, they would run where I needed to and I couldn't get under them. That's the right call for 15 laps to go, and if it had been any more than that, it would have been different. What do you do? You discuss your strategy on the last couple years and what's it done, and it backfires on you. Not really, we got a top five out of it, but we wanted to be where Jason is right now." IS THERE ANY NEED TO RESTRICT THE ENGINES HERE? "There's no need for a restrictor plate out here. It was a great race. I don't know if it was a great race for the fans, but from what I saw, it was a good race. This track is just slick, and the Goodyear tires are great, but they just didn't have much adhesion. The worst cars slide around more than the better cars, and we were one of the better cars, but after our strategy backfired, we needed more track position at the end."
JASON KELLER-57-Albertsons Ford Taurus (Finished 1st) - DID TAKING FOUR TIRES WIN THE RACE? "It was all the difference. Steve Addington and the entire Albertsons crew won the race. It was so hard to pass that you really couldn't pass. I thought Harvick had gotten lucky and had a fast pit stop, but I knew that my boys had a fast stop. I was surprised that he took two, but four Goodyear Eagles won us the race today. We had a good race car, it was just tough to pass. We had fun today." DID YOU KNOW GOING DOWN PIT LANE THAT YOU WERE GOING TO TAKE FOUR TIRES? "I was going to stay there until they put four tires on the car. He may not have meant two, but I knew I needed four tires if I wanted a shot at it. I knew that somebody was going to take on four, so that's what we did." YOU BANGED UP YOUR YESTERDAY IN PRACTICE, BUT IT SEEMED TO GET BETTER AS THE DAY WENT ON. "I was kinda stupid yesterday and hit the wall, but I knew that I had a fast race car. I can't say enough about this team, to back after what we did yesterday in practice. I had a fast car yesterday in Happy Hour, but the driver messed up and the crew had to fix it. This is a team sport, and nothing else but a team sport. All these guys deserve to be on Victory Lane; I'm just happy that I could put them there." YOU FINISHED THE PAST THREE WEEKS OUTSIDE THE TOP 10. DOES THIS PUT YOU BACK ON TRACK? "Well, we wanted to win, and to win this early in the season, so that we can stay in this fight. That's what we needed to do. The 2, the 10 and the 60 are going to make a few mistakes, so if you're going to outrun them, you're going to have to outrun them on the race track. We need a whole lot more days like today. I like this race car, and hopefully we'll run it more often."
GREG BIFFLE-60-Grainger Ford Taurus (Finished 11th) - "The car wasn't that good. We missed it a little bit and we need to keep working at it, keep testing and working at it and then we'll get it to come around." WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END OF THE RACE? "Harvick didn't want to give us our lap back, and that's something you do between racers when it's that close. He claimed that he didn't know that the caution was out and then his spotter told me that he was afraid that the 57 was going to beat him back to the line. He needs to get his story straight of what he's telling people. I was just racing hard, trying to get back on the lead lap. I wouldn't have been up there had he given us our lap back to start with." IS THIS NOW A RIVALRY? "I would say that it was a rivalry after last week. I was pretty cool about the situation, and I didn't put fault on anybody. Kevin and I were racing hard together and I got spun out and wrecked. I didn't blame him for it on television, I didn't say anything about it, except that it was a racing deal. And then he gets on TV, RPM2night, and says that, 'Biffle needs to learn that this isn't the Truck Series.' I don't understand that; I was the one that was wrecked. I don't know why he has to that. I'm just here to race as hard as I can, race for these guys. We were just trying to get back on the lead lap and he kept racing us back to the start/finish line."
RYAN NEWMAN-02-ALLTEL Ford Taurus (Finished 15th) - "We had a good car at the start, but as that American race rubber wore off the race track, the car kept getting tighter and tighter. It was good to go to the finish, but it was a bad deal to cut a tire. We ran over a piece of debris in Turn 1 and it just slowly went down. We fought back and we finished 15th. It's not a happy finish, but it was a good finish." WHAT DO YOU TAKE AWAY FROM THIS RACE? "A lot of notes and experience, and some homework for next year and the next race."
ELTON SAWYER-98-Starter/UConn Ford Taurus (Finished 9th) - ANOTHER TOP-10 RUN. "We seemed to be off a little bit all day. I had to really hustle the car through the corners. It was a little bit loose all day and we couldn't quite get a handle on it. We made some good adjustments, but when you only have a couple of cautions like that, it's hard to make it like you need to. But still, it wasn't a bad day for us." DID YOU GUESS RIGHT ON THE WEATHER? "I don't know if the weather had an effect on us. We were pretty much like we were yesterday, and I thought that the race track would tighten up, and it did a little bit, but it still stayed a little bit on the free side." WERE YOU SURPRISED BY THE NUMBER OF CAUTIONS? "It's hard to pass. It's hard to pass cars." DO YOU SEE A NEED TO RESTRICT THE ENGINES? "I don't want any plates on it, I can guarantee you that. I want more horsepower so that you can get off the corner and pass people."
JASON KELLER PRESS CONFERENCE
YOU TOOK ON FOUR TIRES ON YOUR LAST STOP. "That was the difference. Steve Addington, my crew chief, decided to take on four tires on the last stop and it wouldn't have been so significant, but they had such a fast stop anyway, we came out behind Harvick. He had two tires, and four Goodyear Eagles are better than two Goodyear Eagles, I can tell you that. That was the whole race for us. It was about being patient and getting around those lapped cars and drive a smooth race. I felt like that even before that last caution, we were as good as the 2 car. Lapped traffic was just really hard to get around and keep your momentum. I felt that we were going to be good. It was just going to be who beat who off of pit road. And when I got beat off pit road, I thought that I had lost the race because I never would have dreamed that he would have taken two tires. That was the win for us. Steve made great calls and we had a really fast race car yesterday. It's really hard to sleep the night before the race knowing that you have a fast race car. I'm glad that we put it all together and that it worked out for us." CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE MOVE YOU MADE FOR THE LEAD? "What happened there was, we all tried to get to the bottom as soon as we could getting into 1 on the restart. Biffle sort of held the 2 car up a little bit as we exited off of 2, and that was really the only opening that we needed. I felt like the four tires were going to come in, and once I saw that opening, I took it. I think that Kevin knew that four tires were going to be better than two, too, so he never really challenged it and pulled alongside of me there and let me go after that. That was the difference in the race. I really thought that if we were racing four tires to four tires, it was going to be a whosoever battle, but I really felt that once I got out front with the four tires I was going to pull away, and we did. It's just a testament to this race team. A lot of people don't think that this is a team sport because I'm the one you're interviewing and I'm the one that you're talking to, but this is a team sport and these guys did what they needed to do today. I'm just the fortunate one driving the car, and I'm so proud of my guys. For people that don't know my race team, it's just amazing to be with the group of guys that I'm with and a testament to the kind of team that we've got." HOW BAD WAS THE DAMAGE TO THE CAR AFTER HAPPY HOUR YESTERDAY? "It was bad enough that I had some concerns going into today. I knew that my race team would get everything back squared up and everything back straight, but you never know of you overlook something or a little something here or there. It was bad enough to have some concern, but then we were fortunate enough that it wasn't worse than it was. The good Lord was looking out for us all day. This is a tough race track for me to come back to, I have to say that to everybody. A lot of emotions have been playing through my mind this week. To come here and win is special." WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY? "I got too aggressive in Happy Hour and got up to traffic and scrubbed the wall off of 4. It was just being too aggressive in practice. I'm supposed to be a veteran driver, but I guess veteran drivers make rookie mistakes. Fortunately for us, it didn't hurt the race car." WERE YOU SURPRISED BY THE WAY BIFFLE RACED HARVICK? "I knew that was going to happen after he didn't give him his lap back. There was tire smoke going on under caution. I knew that was going to happen. I knew that if I got Biffle between me, I was going to be in good shape. Let those guys go at it and let me benefit; that's what I say." WHERE DID YOU SEE THE OPENING? "It was off of 2. It became available, and I knew that if I put Biffle between me and the 2 car that we were going top be in good shape. There were some hard feelings with 20 to go under caution; they were swapping some paint, but that's fine by me."
IF YOU HAD TO GO THE REST OF THE RACE WITHOUT THE CAUTION, HOW WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN? "I caught the 2 car. Traffic had helped that a bit, but I had some left. The outcome may have been the same, but we'll never know. I had a great race car. We didn't luck into this deal. Strategy helped us at the end. It wasn't like we were floundering around in the back to win the race. I had a little bit left and he was getting pretty loose of off 2, so it was going to be interesting." WITH THE LEAD THAT KEVIN BUILT UP, DID YOU THINK YOU COULD CATCH HIM? "I knew it was going to be a situation of track position. He didn't pass lapped cars or anything. I never thought that we would go that much under green. I really never thought the race was going to play out like it did. So, I was just waiting for a caution so that we could catch up under caution, and I just kept reeling him in a little bit at a time. Not before long, we were there. It surprised me that it went green as long as it did. The sealer helped a lot, I think it did. The race track was in good shape."
Text provided by Greg Shea
Editors Note: To view hundreds of hot photos and racing art, please visit The Racing Image Galleries and The Visions of Speed Art Gallery .