Ford Nashville Truck Race
FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES Tundra 200 Qualifying (Truck) Nashville Superspeedway August 12, 2006
Erik Darnell, driver of the No. 99 Ford F-150, won his first career Craftsman Truck Series pole in qualifying for this afternoon's 200-mile race at Nashville Superspeedway. Darnell, who also leads the Raybestos Rookie-of-the-Year standings, captured the pole in his 17th career truck series start with a time of 29.601 seconds and an average speed of 162.116 mph.
ERIK DARNELL-99-Roush Racing Ford F-150 (Qualified 1st) - THIS IS THE SECOND CONSECUTIVE POLE-WINNING PERFORMANCE FOR ROUSH RACING DRIVERS WITH DAVID RAGAN WINNING IT LAST WEEK AT ORP. "I think we got lucky today with the early draw. The track was a little bit cooler earlier on, and the sun kind of came out and warmed up the track a little bit. We really weren't that good in practice yesterday. In both practice we made all kinds of changes to the truck and couldn't get the thing to respond. It's the same truck I wrecked at Texas and it's basically brand new coming out here; we hadn't run it yet."
DO YOU EXPECT THE TRACK CONDITIONS TO CHANGE SIGNIFICANTLY BETWEEN NOW AND THE RACE? "With the weather they get around here, the clouds moving in and rolling out, the track changes a little bit, but it's going to be about as hot as it's going to be in the afternoon when we start the race. I've run races here before and it just seems to tighten up as the afternoon goes on. I think we're kind of expecting that here. We'll adjust during the race, but I think we have a pretty good piece right now."
WILL A GOOD QUALIFYING SETUP TRANSLATE TO A GOOD RACE SETUP? "To be honest with you, I don't know because we fought the truck in practice all day yesterday and couldn't get it to do anything. We couldn't get it to respond to anything, and John Quinn (crew chief) and all of the guys did a great job finding a couple of things wrong with the truck there during the morning before qualifying and got it switched around and good for qualifying. I don't know how it's going to run during the race, but I think it's going to be decent. It's definitely nice to go out and get the pole here. I've got some experience here in some other series, which I think kinda helps me out. I've run quite a few races here at Nashville and I think that played into it a little bit. Definitely, the early draw helped us out, but any way we can get them, we'll take them."
DAVID RAGAN-6-Scotts Ford F-150 (Finished 34th) - WHAT PUT YOU BEHIND THE WALL? "Everybody just started stacking up getting into turn one, and, man, I really hate it for the Scotts Ford F-150 team. We had an excellent truck for today and we were just biding our time. Like I said, we had a real good truck, and Erik and I were running right there. They just stacked up in front of us, and before I could get checked up there I was in the back of my teammate Erik Darnell. Hopefully he is all right and can salvage a good day. We'll be all right. We're going to throw some oil lines back on this thing and go out and make up some points."
RICK CRAWFORD-14-Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford F-150 (Finished 28th) - IT APPEARED THAT YOU BLEW A RIGHT-FRONT TIRE IN THE CLOSING LAPS. "We came back from adversity and I'm not really trying to blast Goodyear, but the three DNFs that we've had this year are due to tires failures on the Ford F-150. One rear and two fronts wiped out three trucks and it's just not fair. You feel like a tire company ought to be taking care of drivers rather than putting them on the edge. They at least ought to go a fuel run. That's what I've been trying to say all of the time. I realize I'm just a truck driver here on the Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford F-150, but a tire at least needs to last a load of fuel."
MARCOS AMBROSE-20-Team Australia/Aussie Vineyards Ford F-150 (Finished 3rd, Top Rookie) - YOU MATCHED YOUR CAREER-BEST FINISH. "Man, I love NASCAR. What a great sport this is. We were in mix right there at the end, and I saw them all getting together, and what great racing. That's why I came. It's a challenge just to be part of that action. The truck series is fantastic and I have a fantastic team behind me, too. This is learning year for us, and they just give me great trucks week in and week out. It's just great to give them a finish like this." DID YOU THINK THE RACE WOULD END LIKE IT DID? "I knew that we had a better truck on the long run. We're just trying to be conservative on our setups and let me get the experience. I knew I was looking out for my front-right tire because I could see other guys really getting tight and they were coming back to us, and then the cautions came and that's what we needed. I knew it was going to be on. You're never going to get Skinner and Sprague and Bodine together on a green-white-checkered and not have some kind of carnage out there. I knew the only way I was going to get around them was to get to the bottom and stay there and hope they were going to spatter the race track, and that's exactly what happened." DID YOU PUT YOURSELF IN A POSITION WHERE YOU THOUGHT YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO WIN ON THE LAST LAP? "If I could have cleared Sprague coming off of turn two, I might have had a chance. He kept beside me and he took the wind out of my motor, and I just didn't want to wreck him there in three and four. We came so far and he's a veteran, and I just wanted to make sure I brought her home. Third for us is as good as a win; that's just a great day. We were top Ford and top rookie. I led a lot of laps and it's just been a great experience." DID YOU SURPRISE YOURSELF TODAY SEEING THIS IS YOUR FIRST VISIT TO THIS RACE TRACK? "Well, we had a great run at Kentucky and Kansas on a similar type of speedway, so we were looking forward to a top-10 if we did our job right. It's awesome and I'm just stoked for the team. They give me great trucks every week. I can't do them justice on the short tracks yet. I need to learn to race on the short track s a little bit better. I'm letting them down there, but it's just nice to give the whole team and the guys back at the shop something to say thanks."
TERRY COOK-10-Ford Power Stroke Diesel by Int'l F-150 (Finished 10th) - "We didn't qualify quite as good as we would have liked to. We really didn't practice well the whole weekend and that's not the MO of the Ford Power Stroke Diesel by Int'l truck. We always unload good. This is the race-winning truck from Kansas, and for whatever reason, we just couldn't get a hold of the race track the entire weekend. We thought we were a little better when we qualified, and they dropped the green and we weren't. I elected to come in there and make a shock change. We actually went a lap down making it, but we weren't so worried about it because at that point in the race we were confident that we could get the Lucky Dog and get back on the lead lap, and we did. When we were out by ourselves, in clean air, we could run some pretty fast lap times, definitely lap times that would put us in the top five, if not, for sure, the top 10. We'd just get in traffic and the truck wouldn't go. We're going to have to work on our package for these types of tracks to get a little bit better. To come out here right now with a 10th-place finish with the way our day went, that's almost like we just robbed the bank. We'll take that and run to the house." DID YOU HAVE ANY TIRE ISSUES? "We had no tire issues at all. Some guys had tire issues and maybe we weren't being aggressive enough with them, I'm not sure. One thing Dennis Connor (crew chief) and all of the guys on the team do is they make sure we have good tires underneath us; we're not going to blow tires for making aggressive chassis setups. We had a decent truck and we didn't have any tire woes, and it ended up being a decent day."
ERIK DARNELL-99-Roush Racing Ford F-150 (Finished 12th) - "We sat on the pole there, but when we back through the infield, it just screwed something up on the truck; it wasn't driving right afterwards. I think we knocked something out of alignment and it was pushing the pistons out of one of the calipers, so I didn't have any brakes down there either and I had to pump them up going down the straightaway. I was having a tough time with that because I couldn't race anybody because I couldn't get in the throttle really hard. We just kinda decided that we were going to ride it out there at the end, and got our lap back, got the Lucky Dog, and got the best we could do with it today." DID YOU HAVE ANY TIRES ISSUES TODAY? "I didn't feel any tire issues. I think we had a good enough setup on this thing where it wasn't an issue for us."
MARCOS AMBROSE PRESS CONFERENCE
"It's just a really great day. I'm a rookie, and we just wanted to come here and get a top-10 if we could. If we did our job right, we thought we would, but to mix it up with the veterans out there and lead a lot of laps, it's just a dream run. I love NASCAR and I love the truck series. That action there on the last lap, that's why I traveled 39,000 miles was to come and just experience that and be part of it. Hopefully I've been involved in some of that now. An awesome day for Ford and the F-150. It's just a brilliant day for us, just all of that experience and getting laps and not looking silly out there and doing anything stupid. I'm going to have a nice bottle of Au wine and watch the Knoxville Nationals tonight. I'm pretty pleased with myself."
"When you've got Bodine, Skinner and Sprague and Benson right around you, and the outside, Maestro and Brendan Gaughan giving you a hard on the outside, you know you're going to be in for action and I was hanging on. I was really thinking about just tying to get to the bottom and follow Benson. I thought he was going to be the smartest out of the whole pack, and he went to the bottom and I followed him and just held on. It is daunting. I look up to these guys. I've been watching them on TV for years and years, and just to think that you can be part of that action, it's just a wonderful feeling. The Wood Brothers team has come so far this year, a brand new truck series team. In December of last year, there were no trucks and no crew, so we've come a long way and it's just nice to give something back to all of the crew at the work shop and here that were part of this Team Australia team and just to say thank you and give them back something. It's just a little present to say that you give me awesome trucks. I'm not doing them justice on the short-track racing yet. I've got to get my head around that, and we feel like we've got some handle on these one-and-a-half mile speedways. It's just nice to get to the finish without bending the truck up."
"He's (Skinner) aggressive, I'll give him that. He wanted to win that race, no doubt. I give it to him for having a go; that's what racing is all about. You want to see that. As a fan, you want to see drivers really giving it everything that they've got. You saw that there on the last lap as there were two, three or four guys that were desperate to win that race. That's why we get great crowds, and that's why NASCAR is the sport it is."