FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES- Las Vegas Motor Speedway

September 24, 2005

RICK CRAWFORD-14-Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford F-150 (Finished 7th) - YOU WERE ABLE TO GAIN A FEW SPOTS ON THE FINAL FEW RESTARTS. "We got better and some trucks got worse. Actually, long runs didn't hurt us. We were the best finishing Ford and that's something we're shooting for every week. I'm glad that the entire Circle Bar Corral guys stayed behind it tonight. We started 15th and battled up to seventh, so it was a pretty good night." DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'RE STILL GAINING MOMENTUMS AFTER LAST WEEK'S WIN? "We can be up front every week; we just have to have some good races and we're figuring this thing out one race at a time." HOW WERE THE TRACK CONDITIONS TONIGHT? "When you have a long green-flag run like that everybody's tires wear equally and I think people were just wearing some laps down trying not to cause a caution."

TODD KLUEVER-50-World Financial Group Ford F-150 (Finished 8th) - "We weren't that good on restarts again, and it took us a little while to get going and then we weren't bad. We weren't that good to be honest, but we weren't that bad. Seventh place would have been good, but eighth place is OK, I guess. We can be so much better than this. From bringing a tire that's over a year old to race on and lapped truck getting in the way, it gets frustrating." IS IT TOUGH WHEN YOU HAVE A LONG-GREEN FLAG RUN TO START THE RACE AND YOU AN ILL-HANDLING TRUCK? "No, it's nice to get long green-flag runs like. That's the way racing is supposed to be, I think. It just sucks when you get a restart because all of the lapped guys don't get out of the way. It used to be a common courtesy when there was a lead-lap truck coming that you'd let them go. It's just not there anymore. I understand everybody racing for position, even when you're a lap down, but when you're a lap down and there's not another lap-down truck near you and you're racing with lead-lap trucks, it pretty ridiculous."

TERRY COOK-10-Ford Power Stroke Diesel by Int'l F-150 (Finished 18th) - YOU GOT CAUGHT A LAP DOWN BY ONE OF THE FEW CAUTION FLAGS TONIGHT. "We sure did. The truck was extremely good for about 15 or 20 laps every run. Right at the start of the race we moved right up and then we pitted under green and it cycled around, and the caution flew shortly after and we ended up running around seventh or eighth and moved up a couple of more spots. We had a really good truck on the short runs, but for whatever reason we hit about 20 lap and it would take a dump. There was no grip at all in the front and it would skate in the back, and obviously we were a lot worse than most were at that point, so we just kind of faded back. We made some adjustments and probably over-adjusted and we were losing a lot of time on the track and we decided to short pit and take advantage of the long green-flag runs and fix the problem and take the advantage of fresh tires, and I'll be darned if the caution didn't fly four or five laps later. It's just kind of the way our season has been going as far as luck. We haven't been able to get any or make any, so we'll jus take what we learned here and move on to the next race." ARE THESE ONE-DAY SHOWS TOUGHER ON THE DRIVERS AND TEAMS? "No, I don't think so. The way the impound works, it gets rid of Happy Hour and it makes it tough. Last year we had a lot of caution flags here and it gave us a lot of opportunities to make adjustments and take tires. We used up all of our tires last year, and fortunately NASCAR did give us an extra set this weekend, but we just couldn't keep up with it, I guess