Ford Texas Truck Qualifying

FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES                   Sam's Town 400 Qualifying, Page 1        


June 8, 2006                        Texas Motor Speedway        


 

Michel Jourdain, Jr., driver of the No. 50 Ford F-150, will make his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut tomorrow night in the Sam's Town 400 at Texas Motor Speedway after qualifying in the 30th position.  Jourdain, who has open-wheel experience both in the Champ Car World Series and IRL, is transitioning to a NASCAR career with plans to compete in the Busch Series and truck series for the remainder of 2006.  In 21 career Busch Series starts, Jourdain posted a career-best finish of 10th at Atlanta Motor Speedway last March.  Jourdain, who finished 20th in last year's Busch Series spring race at Texas Motor Speedway, shared his thoughts on the differences between open-wheel and stock cars on oval tracks and his expectations for his truck series debut.  



MICHEL JOURDAIN, JR-50-Roush Racing Ford F-150 - YOU HAVE DRIVEN HERE IN THREE DIFFERENT VEHICLES - A CHAMP CAR, A BUSCH CAR AND NOW A TRUCK.  HOW DOES EACH DIFFER, AND WHAT HAVE YOU FELT MOST COMFORTABLE DRIVING?  "Of course, the Busch car and the truck are the most similar.  What I remember from running here, the Champ Car was just an unbelievable feeling going so fast, but it's been five years ago now, however, it was an amazing experience to go that fast.  It was just much easier, and I don't know if it was because I had more experience or what, but it was just so easy flat-out.  I think it's as easy to go flat-out here in the open-wheel cars as it is for these cars at Daytona or Talladega.  Here, the truck and the Busch car, you really have to drive.  I think the frontrunners are saying they're running flat-out here in the trucks.  I'm not there yet, but hopefully we'll be able to do it in qualifying.  In the Busch car, I think I was even braking and I qualified 11th, so I guess it was not that bad.  The three are pretty different, but the Busch car and truck are the most similar."

 

WITH REGARDS TO TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY, WHAT VEHICLE IS EASIER TO CONTROL IN RACE CONDITIONS?  "Right now, an open-wheel car because after you run nine years you get more comfortable.  In a truck, I haven't run in traffic yet and I haven't done a race.  But, in the end, I feel pretty comfortable in both.  I feel secure enough and safe in both.  After running so many years in a series, you know the competition, you know who's running what car and you know what they do and how they behave, and that's something that I'm still learning.  I think last year in the Busch Series, I started learning that and I was starting to know how to run with everybody.  Here in the truck series, it's something I have to learn again."

 

YOU ARE SCHEDULED TO COMPETE IN EIGHT TRUCK SERIES RACES THIS YEAR, BUT MOST OF THEM ARE STANDALONE EVENTS WHERE MARK MARTIN WILL NOT BE PRESENT AS A TEAMMATE.  WHO ARE YOU TURNING TO FOR HELP TO GET ACCLIMATED TO THE TRUCKS?  "Today I talked with David (Ragan) and Erik (Darnell).  They were helpful and they have a lot more experience in these types of vehicles and in the trucks and at these types of tracks, and they are both very good drivers.  Today I also talked with Terry Cook because I know him with my involvement with ppc Racing and he runs the rookie meeting, so I talked to him some, too."


 

 

 


FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES                   Sam's Town 400 Qualifying, Page 2        


June 8, 2006                        Texas Motor Speedway        


 

(JOURDAIN CONTINUED)

WHEN YOU COMPETED IN THE CHAMP CAR WORLD SERIES THERE WERE MORE ROAD COURSES THAN OVALS, WHICH IS IN STARK CONTRAST TO NASCAR.  AS A DRIVER, ARE YOU MORE COMFORTABLE AT A CERTAIN TYPE OF VENUE?  "Both.  I had great results in oval racing.  In my first Indy 500, I qualified 8th and I was running pretty good until we had a mechanical failure.  My third IRL race, I finished second and got my first podium on an oval.  I got my first Champ Car win at Milwaukee on an oval.  But, I got pole positions on a road course and I got wins at road courses, like Montreal.  I feel like I can run on both pretty good.  Here in NASCAR, running the Busch car on the road course, I feel like I can be competitive right away.  The feel between the open-wheel cars and NASCAR vehicles is so different running on the ovals, and to me the hardest thing is to understand how the car needs to feel to go faster.  I could go out in Long Beach and on my first lap tell you what I needed to feel or how the car needed to feel different to be on the pole position.  If you get it or not, that's harder.  But here, it's something that I'm learning.  Last year I ran very good at some races, but right away on my first lap out I was running very good and feeling comfortable with the car and all that.  When the car is right right away, I feel like I don't have too much trouble, but that's one in 100 times for everybody, and that's what comes with experience.  All of these guys that run these type of cars, they come from Late Models and those types of cars, so you get that feeling, and that's why these kids when they come in and they get with good teams, they run fast right away."

 

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS AND EXPECTATIONS FOR TOMORROW NIGHT'S RACE?  "Finishing the race and running a good consistent race.  I don't want to make any mistakes in the race and just run consistently out there, but running good.  I don't want to just finish and finish five laps down.  I want to finish and finish good, running competitive, but running with people side-by-side and learning a lot and bringing a complete truck back to the shop."


 

 

 


FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES                   Sam's Town 400 Qualifying, Page 3        


June 8, 2006                        Texas Motor Speedway        


 

BOBBY EAST-21-State Fair Corn Dogs/Edy's Dibs Ford F-150 (Qualified 14th) - YOU WERE ABLE TO PICK UP QUITE A BIT OF SPEED FROM PRACTICE.  "We've just got a good truck.  In practice, we were just trying to prepare ourselves for the race and that's usually what we do.  We didn't tape it up and make a mock run in practice because we just weren't worried about it, basically because we feel like we have a pretty good race truck."  YOU ARE A YOUNG DRIVER THAT DOESN'T HAVE A LOT OF EXPERIENCE IN RACES OF THIS LENGTH.  IS THE HEAT A CONCERN FOR YOU TOMORROW?  "From inside the truck, not really. I've just been preparing myself for it in the off-season.  I got a little taste of it last year, and it gets real hot.  I've just been preparing real hard for it, just like these guys prepare real hard at the shop, and I just try to hold up my end of the deal and I just look forward to racing that State Fair Corn Dogs Ford."

 

ERIK DARNELL-99-Woolrich Ford F-150 (Qualified 13th) - "We were looking for a little more than that.  Our Woolrich Ford was real good in practice and I don't know what happened there in qualifying.  The speed wasn't there, but I'm not really worried about it, though, because I know the thing is going to race real well.  It doesn't really matter where we start because this is a wide race track and we'll be good in the race."  DO YOU EXPECT THE RACE CONDITIONS TO BE DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT FROM THOSE IN QUALIFYING?  "I'm hoping it's going to be cooler when the race starts tomorrow night.  I'm assuming that track is going to tighten up a little bit, but I don't know because I've never run here before.  We had a real good truck in race trim today and I think that will carry over into the race tomorrow night." 

 

TERRY COOK-10-Ford Power Stroke Diesel by Int'l F-150 (Qualified 2nd) - DID YOU GET EVERYTHING OUT OF THE TRUCK IN QUALIFYING?  "Yeah, we did.  We just had to lift off the throttle to three-quarters throttle just for a hair in the middle of three and four.  It was just a little tight, but as I told them I was a little tight, I was putting that much wheel to the right, too.  We were a little tight, a little loose, but we got out of it everything we had in it.  The Ford Power Stroke Diesel by Int'l crew just did an awesome job.  It rolled of the trailer and it was almost perfect.  We worked on it the entire practice sessions to make it even better than perfect.  We felt like we got off on a tangent at one point and then we got it back to where it needed to be, which was real good.  It's on the outside pole, and that's a great qualifying effort."  WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF QUALIFYING FOR AN IMPOUND RACE?  "Qualifying means a lot because track position is pretty huge here.  I think there are some good trucks back there that didn't qualify as well, but I've always seen it here where typically if you have a good race truck, you'll qualify well.  I think at this track if you qualify well, you'll race well; that's a product of this track.  I think our truck may have been a pinch tight during qualifying, but they'll make the impound adjustments to free it up for the race, so we're pretty good."  ANY CONCERNS WITH THE HEAT?  "Not really.  I don't think it will be a big issue because we're racing at night, so the sun's not beating on the track.  It's a mile-and-a-half track so you're going to get plenty of airflow into the race vehicle as well as into the motor area.  With those two aspects, I don't think heat will be as big of an issue at this track liked it would be at Memphis, where don't air flow into the race vehicle.  It's a lot more comfortable heat-wise than it was in Dover and I think we're 10 degrees warmer."

 

MARCOS AMBROSE-20-Team Australia/Aussie Vineyards Ford F-150 (Qualified 21st) - "We're really pleased.  We're just trying to turn laps right now.  We're in a hole with three wrecks in three races, and we want to ride through the next couple here and get as much experience as we can and stay out of trouble again if we can."  IN TERMS OF SPEED, IS THE FASTEST TRACK ON WHICH YOU'VE COMPETED?  "No, Dover felt pretty quick.  This place is really a challenge, too.  I've been a little bit limited on laps here and I haven't quite done enough laps in practice.  We're really excited about the race and the future.  I've got a great team and a great opportunity, and I'm having a blast."


 

 

 


FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES                   Sam's Town 400 Qualifying, Page 4        


June 8, 2006                        Texas Motor Speedway        


 

MICHEL JOURDAIN, JR-50-Roush Racing Ford F-150 (Qualified 30th) - CAN YOU TAKE A DEEP BREATH NOW THAT YOU KNOW YOU MADE THE RACE?  "Of course, that's good.  I struggled myself a lot early in practice and we made so many changes, so we're starting to come back on them.  This truck just drives quite a bit different from the Busch cars, so I'm just trying to get used to it.  The guys are doing a great job, and this is the first part of it.  We've made it into the race and we'll see how it goes tomorrow."  WERE YOU ABLE TO RUN WIDE OPEN IN QUALIFYING?  "We were a little bit too tight to run wide open in qualifying, and I lifted a little bit.  We were just too tight.  I could have probably, but I would have had to turn too much and bind it up."

 

RICK CRAWFORD-14-Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford F-150 (Qualified 5th) - FIFTH IS NOT A BAD STARTING POSITION.  "No, it's not.  I've started a lot worse than that here, and this is our home race track here in front off Circle Bar Truck Corral.  The Ford F-150 came on strong there in the second hour of practice, and those qualifying laps were two pretty good laps and that's what you needed on the second lap.  I wish we would have been first, but we'll take fifth and we'll try to win tomorrow night.  We have something we can probably win with."  HOW IMPORTANT IS TRACK POSITION HERE?  "It's big because we have that safe tire, and if you've got that track position that means you don't have to pass them.  Here, this race track is getting wore in to where it's going to have more than one groove.  I'd look for that tomorrow night.  If you can't beat them on the bottom, you can go upstairs and beat then."  ANY CONCERNS WITH THE HEAT?  "Heat an issue for me?  I don't think so.  The sun will be down by the time we get started."

 


 

 

 


FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES                   Sam's Town 400 Qualifying, Page 5        


June 8, 2006                        Texas Motor Speedway        


 


TERRY COOK PRESS CONFERENCE


"We rolled of the trailer and the Ford Power Stroke Diesel by Int'l was strong.  We were third fastest right off the trailer.  We knew that we had something that was going to be competitive.  We worked really hard in practice to screw it up, and at the end of practice we knew where we unloaded and kinda came back towards that.  Dennis Connor, the crew chief, he's made such an impact on our race program.  He and myself have both have been here I think for every truck race that's run here.  We've got a lot of experience here and I think that helped a little bit today, and I'm just looking forward to a good race tomorrow night."

 

WHAT IS THE KEY TO THE RACE?  "I think there's a big difference between qualifying well here and racing well here.  Hopefully we found the right mixture for both, but traditionally here you have to be pretty loose in qualifying to be able to race well here.  The track tomorrow night will tighten up.  Even with the record heat that we're having here in the Dallas area, when the sun goes down here and rubber gets laid on the track, it gets extremely tight.  We'll have long green-flag runs and we'll be making green-flag pit stops, so the key is to have a truck that's free enough through a whole 60-lap fuel run.  I think that we've established that or created that and hopefully that will pay off tomorrow." 

 

"If you're talking about just getting to the track and getting up to speed on a particular race weekend, one lap.  Honestly, I don't mean that in a boasting way, but you've been to enough, or I've been here 17 times now and been to a lot of this mile-and-a-half track, so you kind of know what to expect.  This is the same truck that we brought here that we ran second with at Charlotte three weeks ago.  You have a feel for the truck and you get up to speed very quickly.  That's what Kraig was talking about.  The rookies having never been here, it takes them a little bit longer to get up to speed, and I think NASCAR has done a great job of getting them the extra half-hour of practice with just them on the track to get them up to speed.  You're going to go from here to Michigan Speedway, a two-mile speedway, and you'll run flat-out as well, but you'll run flat-out differently than you will here.  You mix in Indianapolis Raceway Park, where it takes a lot of finesse, so every track is a little bit different.  You get enough years of experience under your belt and you kinda get up to speed quicker."





-30-