Edwards Wins at Gateway -- Ford Notes & Quotes

FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES                   
Busch Silver Celebration 250                
Gateway International Raceway
July 29, 2006                        


 

CARL EDWARDS-60-Henkel Ford Fusion (Finished 1st) - BEING THAT YOU'RE SO
CLOSE OT HOME, CAN YOU PUT INTO WORDS WHAT WINNING HERE MEANS? "I can't
even tell you.  I've just got to thank PK (Pierre Kuettel).  I really
got up there wheel-hopping into the pits and he made a great call.  This
is the biggest win yet, to win here at Gateway in front of the hometown.
I've got to say that Denny Hamlin is a hell of a driver.  That was so
much fun.  I bumped him once and got by him and he bumped me a little
bit and got by  me.  We raced hard for a long time.  I'm just so happy.
It was along week for me and I had a lot to think about, and I'm just
glad to be back here winning a race.  I can't believe this."  TALK ABOUT
THE DECISION TO TAKE TWO TIRES.  "It was easy for me.  I left it up to
PK.  I didn't have to make any decisions.  I just got to drive a great
race.  Once again, Denny Hamlin, what a great race car driver."

 

"It worked out in our favor there because they pitted right before the
yellow.  PK did a great job doing things that probability-wise put us in
great position.  I thought we lost the race there when I screwed up
getting on pit road and wheel-hopped the rear tires real bad.  That's
just unbelievable that we took two tires and they didn't.  It worked out
great."

 

"This is just a special place to me just because of the number of people
that come here that I know and I've raced with and that have helped me.
It means a lot.  Like driver intros, just to hear the crowd, that means
a lot."

 

"It's amazing and there's one thing I want to say.  I really want to
dedicate this win to Bobby Hudson and his family.  Bobby is my spotter
in the Cup Series and he is the shop foreman that takes care of building
all of these Busch cars and all of the trucks.  He's been a racer and
he's worked for Roush Racing forever, and he is one of the greatest guys
that I've met.  His father passed away this week, and I went down there
and visited everybody, and they have a heck of a family.  I want to
dedicate this win to Bobby Hudson, that's number one."

 

"It was just so tough to pass, and Denny was real slow in the center of
the corner down there in one and two.  I bumped him that one time and
got by him, but I knew once I couldn't get away from him, I knew that
was the wrong thing to do because he was going to be right back there.
I was like, 'Please, Denny, just don't wreck me.'  I maybe deserved it a
little bit, but he did a great job.  I had a blast racing with him, and
I hope he had as much fun as I had."

 

"I didn't think the weather affected the track as much as I thought it
would.  I thought it was going to affect it more than it did.  The track
seemed pretty great.  It's different than what I remembered.  The groove
was a little different this time and it made it a little harder to pass,
but it was definitely fun."

 

"I was just trying everything I could.  It seemed like Denny and I were
almost the same speed.  He may have been a tick faster, so it's like,
'Well, you can follow him all night or just try a bunch of stuff.'  I
tried a bunch of stuff and he was just a tick better most of the time.
When I was in front of him, I think I could hold him off, but it was
real tough; he was just a little faster."

 

PIERRE KUETTEL, Crew Chief-60-Henkel Ford Fusion - HOW BIG OF A
DIFFERENCE WAS THE TWO-TIRE STOP AT THE END?  "Apparently, it made all
the difference.  I was contemplating whether we were going to do the
fuel only or the two tires, but we had to wait on fuel anyway, let's
just get two tires.  It worked a lot on time."

 

"It really meant a lot to make this happen for Carl here in his
hometown.  He stressed how important that was and I tried to be pretty
calm about it because it was like, 'we can get this done,' but I didn't
want him to get overly excited about it.  He made it happen.  Right
there at the end where it came down to that green-flag stop, and we were
mulling around whether we were going to do two tires, four tires or fuel
only.  I don't know, I guess I had an epiphany and just decided to do
two tires and it worked out.  After looking at the laps that were left
and the amount of time that we could make up, and we had to wait six
seconds for fuel anyway, it only made sense to put two tires on.  Once I
saw that he got back out there and was eating him up seven and eight
tenths a lap, I knew we had it.  That's why I came over the radio and
told him, I said, 'Listen.  We've got two tires and everybody else is
taking fuel only.  Let's do it.'  He put it in high gear and took off.
It was great." 

 

 

DAVID GREEN-27-Kleenex/Cottonelle Ford Fusion (Finished 7th) - "What
happened is we found some stuff after practice that we thought might
help our car.  It was a little bit of an unknown and we all chose to got
that way and let's try it, and it really didn't work for us.  I
probably, from the way my car was in practice today, we really hurt its
performance tonight.  But, it was a joint decision, and I know now that
we can't make that kind of change.  We were going to take a top-fire car
and make it into a winning car, but instead we backed it up, but it
shows that they never gave up on it and we finished seventh.  We kind of
let one slip away there, but we'll take this car to IRP.  It's
definitely a plus and we're getting thing s turned around."

 

SCOTT WIMMER-66-Yard-Man Ford Fusion (Finished 6th) - "We had a top-five
car and we got behind on our adjustments a little bit and the car got
too tight.  We lost a lot of track position there on that one run, and
we tried to take two tires at the end to get some back, and it just got
tighter.  It's not a bad day, and I think we definitely had a shot at a
top-five and we kind of let that slip away from us.  But, we're building
some momentum; that's two top-10s in this car in a row, and I've got the
last five races of the year in it, so I'm real excited."

 

STEPHEN LEICHT-90-CitiFinancial Ford Fusion (Finished 38th) - WHAT
HAPPENED TO PUT YOU BEHIND THE WALL?  "I lost my brakes.  I went into
turn three, I heard a pop and they went to the floor.  At that point I
was along for the ride.  I feel really bad for the CitiFinancial team.
They did an awesome and worked hard.  At the start of the race, we
really good and we moved up five to 10 spots right off the get-go, and
with about 30 laps before we wrecked, I started having a vibration in
the right-front.  I wasn't sure what was wrong.  I thought maybe a tire
was going down, so we pitted a little early and we came back out and it
was still acting funny, and I went into three and lost the brakes.  It's
one of those things." 

 

TODD KLUEVER-06-3M Ford Fusion (Finished 13th) - "We had a really good
3M Ford Fusion tonight.  Mike Kelley (crew chief) and all of these guys
did a really good job.  They've been working real hard and it showed
tonight.  We had maybe a top-five car, if not a sixth- or seventh-place
car.  We just got burned there pitting under green.  It put us at the
tail end of the lead lap and we were still doing OK and holding our own,
but the 20 car and Carl were fast and they passed us.  Those guys were
fast, and with them starting only one car behind me, I held them off as
long as I could, and it went green all the way through again.  Plus, the
unfortunate thing for us, our worst set of tires was that third set that
we had to try to stay in front of the leaders on.  Man, these guys did a
great job and we had a good car tonight."

 

KENNY WALLACE-22-AutoZone Ford Fusion (Finished 9th) - "All I can tell
you is that we ran absolutely horrible and stole the finish.  That whole
finish is Todd Gordon, my crew chief.  He elected to keep me out as long
as he could and the 90 car hit the wall and that was our savior.  We
were way behind and we're running bad.  That was a team effort."