Ford Kentucky Truck Race
FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES Built Ford Tough 225 Qualifying, Page 1
July 8, 2006 Kentucky Speedway
Marcos Ambrose, driver of the No. 20 Ford F-150, claimed his first career Craftsman Truck Series Bud Pole this afternoon in qualifying for tonight's Built Ford Tough 225 at Kentucky Speedway. Ambrose, a two-time Australian V8 Supercar champion and native of Tasmania, claimed the pole in his 10th series start. The first native of Australia to compete in the Craftsman Truck Series, Ambrose commented on his pole-winning performance.
MARCOS AMBROSE-20-Team Australia/Aussie Vineyards Ford F-150 (Qualified 1st) - FOR A DRIVER WITH A ROAD-COURSE BACKGROUND, YOU POSTED YOUR FIFTH TOP-10 QUALIFYING EFFORT IN 10 CAREER TRUCK SERIES STARTS. "To get a pole, I've always been a pretty strong qualifier and I really don't know why. It scares me a little. It's just great for the guys and great for the team. I've got so many people to thank for getting me over here. Ford Australia and Tom Gorman, and Dan Davis from Ford of America in the racing department to drag me halfway across the world. The team bosses, the Wood Brothers and Tad Geschickter, I just want to thank them for giving me the chance to compete on the ovals over here. I've got some great equipment and a fantastic team behind me. They're making me look better than I could have possibly hoped for in my rookie year. We're just trying to get me used to oval racing, and to get a pole so early in my NASCAR career is more than I expected." DID YOU THINK YOU HAD A POLE-WINNING TRUCK HEADING INTO QUALIFYING? "We had a strong race at Kansas and we're using the same truck here. It's the same setup basically. We've rolled it out and tinkered with it just a bit to suit this race track. We had a nice, late draw and we knew that was going to help us some, but I didn't expect the pole. Anything in the top 10 would have been fantastic." STARTING FROM THE POLE, DO YOU FEEL CONFIDENT ENOUGH IN THE TRUCK THAT YOU CAN STAY UP FRONT? "At least I get to control the start of the race tonight. If we can just circulate inside the top 10 and keep racking those laps up and getting the experience that we need, that's all that we can ask for. I'm happy running at the front there with those guys because they're very experienced and they're very professional, and I feel safer running at the front than what I do in the back because it's just chaos in the back." IS THE PROGRESSION YOU EXPECTED, EARNING YOUR FIRST POLE BEFORE CAPTURING YOUR FIRST WIN? "Yeah, that's normally the way it works. You can go fast, but you don't know how to race. I'm still learning how to race these trucks in traffic, but we're making ground on it."
FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES Built Ford Tough 225, Page 1
July 8, 2006 Kentucky Speedway
RICK CRAWFORD-14-Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford F-150 (Finished 2nd) - YOUR SECOND CONSECUTIVE SECOND-PLACE FINISH. "It's very, very stratifying. We came here to race. We brought a good truck, the best in the fleet for Circle Bar Truck Corral for this Built Ford Tough 225. The Cincinnati Ford dealers put a lot of effort into this race. I think the fans saw a great race tonight. Our guys were must awesome. They did a good job in the pits getting us from 23rd to second. I enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun out here." TALK ABOUT CHASING HORNADAY IN THE CLOSING LAPS. "I tried my best to move on by him. I thought that his truck was a little bit better than mine was. My friend Brendan, a good friend of mine, the Orleans Hotel and Casino do a lot of favors for us and we have a good time out there. Brendan drove up on the outside of me, and when he did I knew I couldn't run with him and fight Ron, too. I had to get behind him and caught Ron for second, but I couldn't keep it out front."
DAVID RAGAN-6-Scotts Ford F-150 (Finished 5th) - A CAREER-BEST FINISH HERE TONIGHT. "I felt like we had the truck to win. The Scotts Ford F-150 was really awesome on long runs, just like it has been the last few weeks. Just a couple of the late cautions, if we would have had 15 more laps to go at the end, I think we could have definitely dealt with some of those guys. It seemed like I passed them two or three times already tonight. The truck races here, we've got so many cautions that everybody gets off of pit sequence, so it was kind of a luck deal at the end of the race."
ERIK DARNELL-99-Roush Racing Ford F-150 (Finished 9th) - "We got lucky on pit strategy tonight to finish in the top 10 tonight. I hate to say I'm disappointed with a ninth, but we didn't run very well tonight. It was kind of a roller-coaster weekend for us. We started off practice and we weren't real great and we thought we got it pretty good there in the evening session last night. We qualified pretty good and got going during the race, and I just could not go in traffic. The thing was real tight and I was having a tough time. We ran decent there for a while and got a little bit back there after a couple of pit stops, and I was just having a tough time trying to make it up through there. We were just fortunate that the yellows fell the way they did and ended up with a top-10 tonight."
MARCOS AMBROSE-20-Team Australia/Aussie Vineyards Ford F-150 (Finished 19th) - YOUR TRUCK WAS FAST OUT FRONT TONIGHT. "Yeah, it was. We just worked out a really good way to lose that race, I guess. We're learning all the time and I'm learning behind the wheel, and we're learning as a team. We showed a lot of promise this weekend. We can't be ashamed of ourselves. We showed a lot of car speed out there, we led a lot of laps, and we've come such a long way in a couple of races. You know, we'll forget about this result in a couple of days and we'll look forward to the next race." DID YOU EVERY QUESTION THE PIT STRATEGY? "I'm not going second-guess the crew chief. He's got an important job to do and he sees the race clearer than I can. I've got a lot of respect in Gary (Cogswell, crew chief) and we'll work out a way to work together better and get a better result when we find ourselves in a similar situation." DO YOU LEAVE HERE HANGING YOUR HEAD? "No, no way. We led laps. We had a great truck to start that race and we just got tight behind trucks around us, and it's just experience. I've got to get better at racing in traffic, and we've got to get better at setting the truck up for those conditions."
FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES Built Ford Tough 225, Page 1
July 8, 2006 Kentucky Speedway
RICK CRAWFORD PRESS CONFERENCE
TALK ABOUT THE END OF THE RACE. "With 10 to go, Phil Parsons with SPEED got on my radio and we talked for a little while. He was talking about restarts with Ron Hornaday and all that, and I said, 'I'll keep one eye on him and the other eye on Brendan because I know how well he ran all night long.' We tried our best to get a run on Ron at the end, and going into three down there I knew Brendan wasn't giving up going down to three, but I didn't realize that he was going to push it up to the outside. Then, I said rather than racing with Ron, because I thought we had a better truck than he did, I knew I couldn't race side-by-side with Brendan because here's Johnny B. behind me. To recap the end, I let Brendan go to get him settled down, and then we caught him again and passed him there at the end for second. The race was only 150 laps long, so we ran out of time and ran second."
THIS IS THE PLACE WHERE YOUR SECOND STARTS STREAK ENDED LAST YEAR. "That ate me up for a while. It bothered me that I could run 210 races straight and then lose it. I really don't like to talk about it because I made it back and did everything NASCAR asked me to do, and I wasn't in the race and everything was OK. I missed that race. I'm just a racer. I don't care where we're at or who we're racing against or what league we're in, I just want to compete and have a good time, and that's what I did to tonight. My old buddy Brendan here, we put on a heck of a show for the fans and the Ford dealers of Cincinnati and the Built Ford Tough 225."
"I was going to give Ron a run for it. I was trying to win the race for Ford Motor Co. and Circle Bar Truck Corral Racing, and the whole team. I don't ever the race is over until the checkered falls."
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