Martin Wins Dover Truck Race
FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTESAAA Insurance 200
Dover International Speedway June 2, 2006
MARK MARTIN-6-Scotts Ford F-150 (Finished 1st) - "It was a great run. I want to thank Jim Hagedorn and Scotts Miracle-Gro and this team. Man, they were awesome on pit road. We had the long-haul setup on it and we got a lot of green-flag racing, so it really worked out for us today. The thing was really good on the long runs. This thing, we didn't qualify that well, but I told them we set it up to race, and it raced well. This truck racing is the most fun I've had for years and years." IS THIS ONE OF THE MOST UNIQUE TROPHIES THAT YOU HAVE WON? "I hadn't gotten one of those. They hadn't started giving those out back when we were winning with our Cup cars, but maybe we'll get us another one Sunday."
CARL EDWARDS-50-Ortho Ford F-150 (Finished 2nd) - AN IMPRESSIVE FINISH IN YOUR FIRST TRUCK RACE SINCE 2004. "It's a blast. I've got to thank everybody at Scotts. I told them that was just about as much fun as you could have. Congratulations to Mark Martin. It's awesome to finish one-two with the Scotts trucks here. I hope they let me run another one. I'd like to win one of these. That was fun. Matt Puccia (crew chief) and all of the guys built a great truck. I just have to thank them. They worked on the seat all day and got everything just like I liked it. Man, that was a blast to drive."
TERRY COOK-10-Power Stroke Diesel by Int'l Ford F-150 (Finished 16th) - "We're obviously all disappointed. The Ford Power Stroke Diesel by Int'l truck was extremely fast during practice day and maybe it kind of lulled us into thinking that we had a little bit better race truck than we did. The thing was just aero sensitive. We were extremely tight behind other trucks and Dennis Connor, the crew chief, made a great call there at the end of the race for two tires, and I think the truck actually responded quite well to it. It was good, and unfortunately with 15 or 20 laps to go, the right-rear tire got a hole in it, and it started going flat. What little bit of track position we had went for not at that point. At that point we were just trying to bring the truck home with all four wheels attached."
RICK CRAWFORD-14-Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford F-150 (Finished 8th) - "Kevin 'Cowboy' Starland and all of the guys on the team did a good job. It was a good race for us. It was a solid day. I wish we would have made those adjustments earlier in the day. Those little adjustments fixed it there at the end, but we just didn't have the track position there at the end. We learned something today. We're using Robert Brooks' engineering expertise from Ford to keep the Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford in the hunt, and it was. Like I say, we're still learning about this thing. Next week we should gun a blazin' in Texas." DID THE TRACK CONDITIONS CHANGE AS THE WEATHER CHANGED THROUGHOUT THE DAY? "They didn't change for me. We just slowly adjusted on it, and like I say, we got it there at the end, so that's what happened."
BOBBY EAST-21-State Fair Corn Dogs/Edy's Dibs Ford F-150 (Finished 17th) - "We had a good truck and we ran a real cautious race because we want to take this truck to Texas. We know we have a good mile-and-a-half program, so we're excited about that. I just have to thank State Fair Corn Dogs and Edy's Dibs, and everybody back in the shop for sticking with me, and I love racing for Wood Brothers/JTG Racing." YOU HAD A RACING INCIDENT LAST WEEK, BUT ARE YOU FINDING OUT WHO YOU CAN RACE WITH AND HOW TO RACE AROUND SOME OF THE DRIVERS? "I'll tell you what, I had fun racing with everybody today. There was one truck that was a lap down that didn't feel like racing until I got to him, so that kind of made me a little mad, but hopefully that will get sorted out, but we're pretty happy with coming home in one piece and finishing on the lead lap."
CARL EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE
"Well, I screwed up qualifying a little bit and we had to start 19th or something like that. The truck was awesome. I drove up to front and then I put us up far in the pit, in my put stall, and we went to the back. We made it back up to the front and then we had a bad pit stop and we went to the back, and we made it back up to second. We just couldn't make it back up to the lead. But, I had such a blast. The guys did a great job with the truck and we had a good time, and that's the most important thing. I haven't had that much fun for I don't know how long, I told them prom night. I don't know if it's really been that long, but I had blast. The trucks, everybody raced real great and I had a great time. It was fun. I had a good time. We had the Scotts trucks one-two, so it's pretty cool."
WHAT HAPPENED ON THE SECOND PIT STOP, AND DID YOU THINK YOU COULD OVERCOME THAT TO FINISH UP FRONT? "I'm not sure what happened they had a little bit of trouble on the right side on the pit stop. Yeah, I thought we could make it back to the front. I didn't think it would go green. I thought maybe we'd get a caution. Mark got a pretty good lead, but the truck was so awesome. If we would have had one caution it would have been a little easier, but it was still good."
COULD YOU HAVE GONE ALL THE WAY ON FUEL WITHOUT A CAUTION? "They told me we couldn't go all the way, so I trust we were pretty short. I don't know if we could have or not."
DID YOU TALK TO MARK AT ALL ABOUT RUNNING THE TRUCK AND THE CHANGES TO THEM SINCE YOU LAST RACED IN THE SERIES? "Yeah, I called him this week on Tuesday when I found out we were going to do this and talked to him a little bit about it. He said all I had to do was try to beat him. He said that's the toughest part of the truck series right now. He helped me out a little bit. He talked about setups and stuff."
WHAT DO YOU THINK MARK GETS OUT OF RUNNING THIS SERIES? "I think he probably just has fun. They're fun to drive. They just drive like you want a vehicle to drive. I could drive into turn one sideways and it's pretty neat, and everybody does a really good job. You'd have to ask him for sure, but I know I'd do this again tomorrow if they had a race tomorrow morning. It was fun."
MARK MARTIN PRESS CONFERENCE
"Well, I think we were a little bit disappointed with how we qualified, but we knew that in practice we had truck for the long hauls. Lucky for us, there was a lot of green-flag racing. The guys did a great job preparing it and especially pitting it and keeping me in the front once we got to the front. It was one of those days where everything worked out for you. Like I say, we expected based on experience, I had the track to come to us, and it came to us pretty well. We only made one adjustment and that was on the last pit stop."
HOW MUCH FUN WOULD IT BE TO HAVE CARL EDWARDS IN THE NO. 50 FORD EVERY RACE AS A TEAMMATE? "As long as we're in first place, I'm having a ball. To be honest with you, it's just a lot of fun. In my opinion, the truck series is the best racing in NASCAR right now. It's a lot of fun. It's full of great drivers, and the vehicles are a lot of fun to race. Carl would certainly keep me on my toes if he would have been anywhere near, so I tried to make sure I was in a different zip code if I could be."
YOU NOW HAVE A WIN HERE IN ALL THREE NASCAR SERIES. IS THERE A SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE TO GETTING THE THIRD WIN? "That's for you guys, I don't keep score. That's for you guys to keep. That sounds good, so don't forget about it. Talk about it because I'll forget. The focus is now on Sunday. To go to bed with the ways things turned out, I'm really grateful to my fans who have been incredibly supportive. To the people that have their hands on that Scotts truck, the engine folks, as well as the fabricators and pit crew and everybody else, thank you for letting me drive your stuff, but the focus is now on Sunday and everything else is history. This is behind us."
DID YOU CONSIDER STAYING OUT ON THE LAST CAUTION? "At that caution, I think we would have made it and it would have been fine, but I'm leaving all of that stuff up to Mike Beam. I think everybody was going to come so it would comfortably put them in the window, especially in the case of a green-white-checkered finish. I think pretty much everybody planned on coming for that one."
"Kyle was really fast, especially on the shorter runs. I really couldn't do anything with him on a short run. Our strong suit was long runs. Had it gone green all the way, I told our guys that I thought I could beat him at the end of a 90-lap run, but that's yet to be seen. He was incredibly fast, but he was really fast on new tires. I couldn't quite run with him on new tires there for a little while. He's real fast in that truck."
JACK ROUSH PRESS CONFERENCE
"Our Ford F-150s ran great today. Carl Edwards was in the 50 truck and did a great job with it. If we had equal pit stops for both programs, I think it might have been a better race at the end between the two, but Mark is really good in the truck as we've seen every place that he's been this year. For Scotts and Ford to be up there with us, I just couldn't hope for anything better."
WILL CARL RUN ANY MORE TRUCK RACES? "We would like to have Carl drive every race if he could. This is one of the few, actually it wasn't a great time for Carl because he's got a Busch race tomorrow, so he's doing the three-for this weekend. We don't have any more plans for Carl to be in the truck the balance of the year. If it works out so we have a seat for him, he's always there and ready to drive anything that anybody would give him to race. He did a great job with it today. This is a brand new truck that the guys had built with a couple of things in it that were a little bit different, and that will bode well for what Mark will be seeing for the rest of the year, too."