NASCAR BGN: Post Race Driver Quotes, CarQuest Auto Parts 250

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

July 22, 2001

JEFF GREEN-10-Nestle Nesquik Ford Taurus (Finished 5th) - "It was pretty good for our Nesquik Taurus. We just missed it a little bit. We were too tight at first and too loose in the nighttime when the sun went down. It was still a pretty good finish and Harold (Holly) did a nice job calling for two tires and we got a top five. I was able to hold on for a little while, and Kevin brake checked on the back straightaway. One of these days I'm not going to lay off on him, but it's what he had to do. They earned it." WAS TWO TIRES THE RIGHT CALL? "We weren't fast enough to pass him, so that's the way we did it. The guys did a great job to get me out in second behind Elton Sawyer and I was able to pass him. We needed some more cautions. The green flags let the four tires overtake the two. Kevin drove me pretty dirty there, but he did what he had to do. I was trying to win; you've got to do what you've got to do. Top five - we haven't been here for a while, so this feels pretty good." WAS LAPPED TRAFFIC A PROBLEM? "Not really, there was just a lot of it. They gave you enough room, so it was OK. Most of them were way off, and they did a good job of getting out of the way." HOW BAD WAS THE HEAT IN THE CAR? "It's pretty warm, but I didn't recognize it until I got out. It feels pretty good right now." DID THE TRACK CHANGE AFTER THE RAIN SHOWER? "It was loose at first, and then when the sun went down, it got tight. We fought that. We were loose at first and then we tightened it up and were too tight. We could never get it loosened up again. I was still too tight to get off the corner and that's where those guys were beating me. That's where Kevin beat me. He turned under me over the top of the corner and was able to outrun me a little bit."

JASON KELLER-57-Albertsons Ford Taurus (Finished 2nd) - TALK ABOUT THOSE LAST LAPS? "I had two tires there, and I should have never let him by me again. When you get the lead with five laps to go, you're supposed to win. I didn't do my job tonight. I was loose getting in all night and right there at the end, we were all right. I hate to loose them like that." HOW BAD WAS THE HEAT? "It was pretty bad. About midway through the race, we started coming on there and had a good car at the end. Steve (Addington) made some good changes, but I kinda let them down there at the end. It was all I had." DID THE TRACK CHANGE AFTER THE RAIN SHOWER THIS AFTERNOON? "It was a little different, but it's one of them things. Anytime you lose them that close, you're pretty disappointed. I got on top of the wheel at the end, but he just got by me. I thought I almost had him, but that's the way it goes."

GREG BIFFLE-60-Grainger Ford Taurus (Finished 4th) - IT LOOKED LIKE CONTACT WITH THE 63 CAR MAY HAVE COST YOU A CHANCE AT THE WIN TONIGHT. "It did. We had a fast car. After that last pit stop I thought we had a pretty good car. I don't know what he was thinking or doing. He raced us through the corners, ran up on the outside and wouldn't give us room coming off. I couldn't believe it, so I crowded him coming down the backstretch to let him know, 'Hey, I need an entrance into the corner because I trying to chase down Kevin Harvick, the race leader.' He just turned left into me and wrecked and ran into me three or four times down the frontstretch and tried to take me out. I don't know how I kept it off the wall. It was a heck of a job to finish fourth. The Grainger team did a great job. We'll be talking to Shane Hall." HOW HARD WERE YOUR EARLY COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS TO OVERCOME? "Terrible, terrible. That's probably why I was so overheated because I was extra nervous. And being like that, I was thinking too much and thinking that I was in real danger, in real trouble. I really didn't know what to do and trying to communicate playing charades just doesn't work. It worked out, but I was hoping they would give me a new button the first time in, but they gave it to me the second time." FOUR TIRES LOOKED TO BE THE RIGHT CALL AT THE END. "Absolutely. Shane Hall wrecked us going down the backstretch and tore the whole side of the car off. I was just limping to the end after that. I could have run down those leaders, easy, if the side of my car wasn't torn off. I was getting so much air on the side of it, I was doing all I could just to drive it." YOU LOOKED LIKE YOU WERE TAKING A DIFFERENT LINE THAN MOST AROUND HERE. "I was just doing whatever I could to drive it. I was in bad, bad shape. It knocked the rearend out of square. I mean, it moved the wing over; it's just ruined aero. I burnt the brakes off the car at the end there and that's my fault."

ELTON SAWYER-98-Univ. of Illinois/Starter Ford Taurus (Finished 8th) - YOU HAVE THE LONGEST STREAK OF TOP-10 FINISHES GOING ON THE CIRCUIT. "We had a good car. Ricky (Viers) made a great call at the end and we just took fuel. That last set of tires we put on there, Ricky and the guys adjusted on that thing as good as you could. We drove it from 11th to 7th and Ricky made a good call to take only fuel at the end. My goal was to run as hard as I could for the first 10 laps after the restart and see where Jeff was. I just used the car and myself up in those 10 laps, but we got another top 10 and gained in the points." GOING INTO THE RACE, WAS A FUEL-ONLY STOP AN OPTION YOU HAD PLANNED? "We practiced two tires and we knew that was good. We didn't fall off that much. It was a good call for us. Track position was everything and if we had it all to do again, we would do it again."

CHRISTIAN ELDER-38-Great Clips Ford Taurus (Finished 30th) - WHAT PUT YOU BEHIND THE WALL? "Well, both ignition boxes went. I had to flip over to the second one about 20 laps ago and that one started to go, too. We were here for learning. I feel bad for all the Great Clips people because this is one of their biggest markets and they had a lot of fans in the stands today. I learned a lot and we'll be better next year." DID YOU HAVE ANY BRAKE PROBLEMS LIKE SOME OF THE OTHER COMPETITORS? "My brakes were pretty good; I wasn't riding on top of somebody the whole race. They were holding with me pretty well. I could tell when I was riding behind some guys that if you were in traffic all night, you were going to have a handful."

SHANE HALL-63-Lance Snacks Ford Taurus (Finished 22nd) - WHAT WAS YOUR TAKE ON THE INCIDENT WITH GREG BIFFLE? "It started in Milwaukee. He was coming on the outside of me there and got in the loose stuff and then coming down the front straightaway, he ran into my left door; I really didn't appreciate that. And then here, coming off of 2 and going down the back straightway, he was shoving me against the wall and trying to put me in the opening, so I turned left to let him know to give me more room and here he comes right back into me. It just started from there and it hasn't gotten much better." YOU WERE ASKED TO VISIT THE NASCAR TRAILER AFTER THE RACE. "It was just trying to get us back on terms but I don't know if it did a whole lot to be honest. NASCAR has informed us that we can't touch each other on the race track or they will park both of us."

JASON KELLER PRESS CONFERENCE

"Anytime you're leading with five to go, it's going to be disappointing. We put ourselves in a position to win at the end and made some good changes to the car. We took two tires instead of four there at the end for track position, and actually, it freed the car up, so it made the chassis work better than it had all night. I'm disappointed, but if you told me that I was going to finish second with about 60 to go, I would have been excited. It was fun. Those are the kind of races that I dream about, but I'm usually on the other end of the deal at the end when I'm dreaming. It was a fun day." WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE NEEDED TO STAY IN FRONT OF HARVICK? "I really think, we were getting runs off of each other off of 2. Coming to take the white flag I knew I had to be on his bumper going into 1 and I spun the tires just off of 4 and fell two car lengths away from him. I made that up off of 2, but I didn't put myself in a position getting into 1. I did everything I thought I could, but it just didn't pan out that way. It's tough out there. Somebody has to finish second, but I just didn't want it to be me tonight." IT LOOKED LIKE HARD WORK THERE AT THE END, BUT WAS THAT FUN RACING? "That's what you race for. Coming down to the end of a 250-mile race and to be in a position to win the race and battling like we were and sliding around, that's what you race for. I'm preaching all along to stay in this points battle we need to put ourselves in position. We didn't have the best car tonight, but we were smart tonight. We read the car pretty good midway through the race, and I surfed around the race track a lot more than I usually do to find the groove where the car worked best. We're racing smarter than we used to, and that's what the difference is. We've got great race cars, and like Kevin, we have great pit stops. We did what we needed to do and I don't think anybody can fault us for racing our hearts out tonight. For us to stay contenders for the next part of the season, we've got to do what we did tonight. We have to qualify up front like we did this weekend and we have to run up front at night. It was a lot of positives. We did what we needed to do." HOW HARD IS IT TO FINISH SECOND HERE? "I don't know. That other second-place finish, we were sliding around a lot too. It was pretty hot out there and we were sliding around there tonight. I've had two close seconds here. It's a fun race track because it's so unique because it's so different on the two ends. I had a great time and the Anhueser-Busch people treated us great on Thursday. It's been a great time. Too bad we don't have any Albertsons strores around here where we could go buy some Busch beer right now, but if I'm sure I can find some down pit road here." DID YOU HAVE ANY BRAKE PROBLEMS TONIGHT? "I did. It made my car better when I stopped using so much brake. Steve came on the radio and told me that fronts were really getting hot. I'm not the brightest light in the hall, and I kept cranking brake in it and it kept getting worse. I was cranking it the wrong way and putting more front brake in it. I figured that out midway through the race and it started getting the car better. It was tight racing all night. You'd go around lapped cars and would slide around. It wasn't an overabundance of beating and banging, but there was some cool beating and banging going on. Drivers like to be kind of physical, and it was a physical race out there. We would get jammed up on the restart and get nose to tail, and I busted the grille off the car. I felt like I was at Greenville-Pickens." YOU CAR LOOKED BETTER AFTER THAT LAST PIT STOP. "We went back and looked at some changes and we made some air pressure adjustments. Actually, the two tires was a bit of a baffle because the guys that took on four weren't faster than we were. The two tires freed up my car like I needed it to be and it put ourselves position at the end. We were watching the cars that took on two tires at the start of the race and we knew weren't going to take on two until then end. That was our strategy. We were losing track position in the middle of the race with guys taking on two, but we knew we needed as fresh of left-side tires as possible because we were going to take on two right-side tires at the end. It worked out like we wanted it to at the end as far as track position. It was just a fun night." WAS IT TOO PHYSICAL AT THE END? "Kevin and I have raced a lot against each other. It was just hard racing. I knew it was going to get with screwing with a little bit, but we were right in the mix of it. He's a hard racer and they've got a great race team and so do we. I wish he was about 10 car lengths back in my rearview mirror and we would have been all right, but it just didn't work out that way."

Text provided by Greg Shea

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