Ford Darlington Busch Race
FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES Diamond Hill Plywood 200 (Busch), Page 1 May 12, 2006 Darlington Raceway MATT KENSETH-17-Ameriquest Mortgage Ford Fusion (Finished 2nd) - "We had a good car. Jimmy (Fennig) has done a great job over here and so has everybody that works on this thing. It was fun, I just didn't get a long enough run at the end. I think we had a little bit better car than Denny most of the night, but he just got in front of us on that last pit stop. I was just a little bit too loose and I didn't quite have enough time to get a much of a run on him." WAS YOUR CAR SET UP FOR THE LONG RUNS OR SHORT RUNS? "A little bit of both. I really needed about 20 laps. With that last caution at 25 to go, I thought we were going to be in good shape, but we had a lot of really short runs. It's hard to make that pass in two or three laps. Overall, it was a great day and the guys did pretty good in the pits tonight, a lot better than last week. I know they're working on that hard and they're getting the cars pretty good and we're having fun." MARK MARTIN-6-Ameriquest Mortgage Ford Fusion (Finished 4th) - DID YOU NEED A LONG GREEN-FLAG RUN AT THE END? "Well, that was our strong suit. It was just accident. We didn't mean to set it up that way, but it was really strong on the long run. I was very pleased with my truck team here taking care of the Ameriquest Ford this weekend, and we're having some fun." WAS IT THE SAME OLD DARLINGTON TONIGHT? "Yes, it is. We just couldn't quite get it within striking distance. We kept inching closer and closer, but just couldn't quite contend for it." GREG BIFFLE-16-Weyerhaeuser/iLevel Ford Fusion (Finished 5th) - "It wasn't too bad for us. We're excited to have Weyerhaeuser on the car this week. It was a good run for us overall. We had great pit stops. Pit road was kind of a struggle tonight. We had great stops and then kind of got run up by some cars. We got trapped by a lapped car there and Mark Martin got around us for fourth, but still a top-five finish for this team. We're a real consistent race team, and I'm pretty excited to be driving this car." DO YOU FEEL THAT YOUR RACING LUCK MIGHT BE CHANGING? "It certainly seems like it. We qualified on the pole last week at Richmond and finished fourth, and a good qualifying effort for tomorrow night for the Nextel Cup car, and a great run here in the 16 car tonight." JON WOOD-47-Clorox/American Red Cross Ford Fusion (Finished 33rd) - "I just don't know what happened. It got loose. It just got loose and then it went around on me. I had a good car. It was a great car. I was so fast. I just don't know. It's so bad I could just sit here and smile about it. What are you going to do?" FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES Diamond Hill Plywood 200 (Busch), Page 2 May 12, 2006 Darlington Raceway STACY COMPTON-59-Kingsford/Bush's Baked Beans Ford Fusion (Finished 14th) - "I'm awful proud of these guys. It's terrible to be happy with a 14th, but with the year that we've had, to come to Darlington and we had as good of a race car as anybody here on long runs. To start where we did and end up in the top 15, I'm pretty happy with it. It was a great race car. We're learning a lot. We learned a lot at the Charlotte test, we're learning something everyday. We know the road that we're heading down, it's going to take us a while to figure it out, but once we figure it out I think we're going to be a lot better race team because of it. I'm pretty happy with it." WAS IT A TYPICAL DARLINGTON BUSCH RACE TONIGHT? "Yeah, we saw a lot of cautions and I wish there wouldn't have been. Twenty laps in, we were as fast as the leader, and that's where we were making all of our ground up. Right there at the end we could never catch a green-flag run. It was the same old Darlington. I'm surprised it didn't happen earlier. Most of the time it's the first 50 laps and then it calms down, but tonight it looked like it was the last 50." KENNY WALLACE-22-AutoZone Ford Fusion (Finished 16th) - "We missed the setup tonight. We were just too tight. It looked like we were going to finish 11th or 12th and we had problems in the pits. We had a bad pit stop and lost lug nuts on the left-front. I guess 16th is not what we wanted, but it was a heck of a race." WERE YOU SURPRISED BY ALL OF THE LATE-RACE CAUTIONS? "No, not really because new tires stuck so good. The problem was that you had to get your pass done right away. If you didn't get it done right away it was hard to make because the tires would wear out so fast. We're just behind the 8-ball on a lot of our setups and we're trying to get smarter. We're a little better, we're just not as good as we need to be. We looking forward to Charlotte since we had a really good test there." CARL EDWARDS-60-Henkel Ford Fusion (Finished 8th) - "We had a really great race car, but it was lost on the second lap of qualifying. That's my fault. The guys had a winning car there. That thing was fast. On long runs we were great, unbelievable. It was a mediocre day, but it was still fun. We needed a long run at the end to be better. Everybody can go on the short run." FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES Diamond Hill Plywood 200 (Busch), Page 3 May 12, 2006 Darlington Raceway MATT KENSETH PRESS CONFERENCE "We ran pretty good. We had a good car. I think the 64 was about the same. If he was in the front, I couldn't pass him, and I think when I was in front of him he couldn't pass me. The 20 was right there with us, probably. It was just that we weren't at the front in the end and it was tough to make a charge in two or three laps. I'm confident that if we would have got back out in the lead, I think it would have been pretty hard to get around us. Overall, it was a good race. We had a good car. Jimmy (Fennig, crew chief) made some great adjustments. I've been having a lot of fun racing with him. The guys had a lot better pit stops than we had last week. We were at least pretty competitive on pit road tonight. Overall, it was a good night. I thought we had the best car if we couldn have been out front and just didn't win. I'm disappointed with that, but yet it was a good night and we finished second." DID YOU KNOW BEFORE THE GREEN-FLAG FINISH THAT UNLESS DENNY MADE A MISTAKE THAT YOU WOULDN'T HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN? "I guess, no, I didn't know that. You always like to think that you're going to beat the guy in front of you. If you look at the history of green-white-checkers, unless you're me - I'm really good at losing them - but unless you're me, a lot of last-lap passes for the win don't happen. It's just hard to get to get around someone, especially at a place like this. Even though they were only six- or seven- or 10-lap tires, they were really slick compared to stickers. I think on stickers, if I would have had a good restart - like I did have a good restart - I think if we were both on new tires, I might have been able to get a run and make something happen. Even on tires like that, you pretty much need the whole track to keep your car under control. It's hard to get side-by-side even. I knew our chances were a lot better if we were in the front, but yet I still thought maybe we would have had a shot at him if he slipped up a little bit." -30-