Ford Kansas Busch Race

FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES
Yellow Transportation (Busch)
September 30, 2006
Kansas Speedway

MATT KENSETH-17-Pennzoil Platinum Ford Fusion (Finished 2nd) - "We were good. We had a great car all day, we just got a little behind there the last stop. Not much, but just clean is real important. We had a lot of short runs, a lot of cautions and we didn't have a red flag, so we clicked off so many laps under caution at the end, we couldn't really put on a good race for the win. I think with all them cautions, 15 or 20 laps, I don't know if I could have had Kevin or not, but it would have been a lot better of a race."

GREG BIFFLE-16-Ameriquest Mortgage Ford Fusion (Finished 8th) - A SOLID FINISH FOR IN A CAR THAT NEVER TURNED A LAP PRIOR TO THE RACE. "It was a pretty good piece and we were pretty happy with it. It could have been better. That last restart, I think I could have got a couple of spots. It's unfortunate, but to start last in the field after the incident in qualifying, I think this is a pretty good end result." STARTING 29TH TOMORROW, WAS TODAY'S RACE GOOD PRACTICE ON HOW TO GET THROUGH THE FIELD? "It was and the groove has really widened out here, and I was able to use the other groove to get around the cars in the race. We've got a pretty fast car for tomorrow, so I'm pretty confident with it." WITH THE FORECAST CALLING FOR HIGHER TEMPERATURES TOMORROW, HOW MUCH WILL THE TRACK CHANGE? "I think it will get slicker, but I learned some stuff about it today because it seemed to get warmer as the race went on today."

CARL EDWARDS-60-Ameriquest/freecreditreport.com Ford Fusion (Finished 6th) - "I love racing here. We were just a little bit loose there at the end and couldn't go any faster and ended up sixth. I'm excited about tomorrow." WILL TODAY'S RACE HELP YOU TOMORROW? "It's good just to run an extra race here. I don't think it will affect tomorrow very much. We learned a little bit, but the cars are so different that it's just for fun today. That's what every day for, but racing here is s a lot of fun." HOW HAS THE TRACK SURFACED AGE OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS? "You can run a little higher and it's more fun. You can run higher at both ends of the track if the car is right, and it's going to get better and better." WILL YOU STICK AROUND FOR THE USAC SLIVER CROWN RACE HERE LATER? "I'll stick around and hang out and watch. I don't know if I'm going to spot, I think Pete's (Shepherd) dad is spotting, so I'll hang out and watch." ARE YOU TAKING AN ACTIVE INTEREST IN THE SILVER CROWN PAVEMENT SERIES? "Yeah, I own the car. I'm part owner (No. 99 Carl Edwards/R.E. Technologies Ford) and I'm not the owner. The biggest thing is just having fun with it. What we're trying to do right now is find sponsorship and do anything we can to support the series, and let these guys like Pete Shepherd come out and race in front of all of these Cup guys and Busch teams and get jobs. It's kind of the dream."

DANNY O'QUINN, JR.-50-Transamerica Ford Fusion (Finished 18th) - YOU HAD A TOP-15 FINISH IN THE CLOSING LAPS. WHAT HAPPENED? "Yeah, they all wrecked going down into one on that green-white-checkered. They checked up and there was nowhere to go. The people behind me had nowhere to go. I got turned and we're lucky to finish where we did, I guess, as bad as the car got tore up. We had a pretty good car today. We were moving up through there pretty decent all day. It was just a lot different from yesterday, and thought we were going to have a decent finish, but just unfortunate luck there."

JON WOOD-47-ArmorAll Ford Fusion (Finished 15th) - "We were kind of behind where we needed to be after the wreck early in the race. I think that hurt us for the most part. I know that we did everything we could do, and I think to come out of here finishing where we did was pretty respectable. I think we were are good as we were going to get, and I'm not saying that in a negative way, I think we made the right adjustments and we were passing cars. The bottom line is I was passing a bunch of cars when it happened. Being in the wreck definitely hurt and we never ran as fast after that, but all together it's still a pretty decent race."

TODD KLUEVER-06-Lowen/3M Ford Fusion (Finished 37th) - WHAT DID YOU SEE FROM YOUR VANTAGE POINT? "Well, I saw the 66 car spinning and by then it was too late. We were already head-on. It's unfortunate, we had a really good 3M Ford Fusion. We had Lowen on the hood this weekend and I real happy. I thought we were going to have a good run, but unfortunately things happen. What can you do?"

MATT KENSETH PRESS CONFERENCE

"It was good. I thought we probably had the best car overall all day. Kevin was a little better on long runs, it seemed like, when he ran on top he would catch me a little bit, but for 20 or 30 laps we could get away pretty good and got behind a little just a little bit that last pit stop. It was only one car, but with all of them short runs and all of them cautions at the end, we just couldn't get back around Kevin."

"We were going to get four tires pretty much no matter what. Jimmy Fennig (crew chief) told me what was going on and I said it sounded like we needed four and he agreed, and we just did that. I think as much as they dropped off, they were really good for 25 laps, and we could run pretty good, especially with all of the short cautions at the end. It probably wouldn't have mattered as much, but on a long run we would slow down a second to a second and a half, so I think the tires dropped off here a lot more than they have in the past. I think you had to have tires with that many laps."

DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING TODAY FOR TOMORROW? "Not me."

YOU AND KEVIN HAVE BEEN BATTLING HARD IN BOTH SERIES THE PAST FEW WEEKS. "Well, it's been fun. It's fun to be racing a guy that's winning all of the races. That's the good thing. Kevin has been killing the Busch Series this year and is a contender to win every week, so it's been fun. The Childress Busch cars, I think, have been the class of the field all year long. I don't think even guys coming doing one-off races or partial schedules or full-time schedules, I don't think anybody can run with the Childress cars this year on a consistent basis. I've been pretty much surrounded by them guys. Last week, I was right in between them, and Clint was behind me on the last restart and I don't know what happened to him. They run really good, and we have our stuff about as good as I knew how to make it today and we still got beat. I think if we would have been in front, we could have held them off, but in the past when I had a car that drove that good in the Busch Series - that felt that good - we could drive away and win the race a lot easier than what we could today. He's hard to beat. Those Busch cars that they've got over there, and their Cup cars now, are really tough."

"Well, my cars are driving a fair amount different. A couple of years ago, we could run a lot of the same setups, and stuff back and forth, but I think with the Busch cars with the big spoilers on them and the Cup cars with the little spoilers now, and the engines being 100 to 150 horsepower apart and the wheelbase being different, I think they are enough different that I haven't been able to use the same stuff. You run some laps on the track and see what the groove is going to do and the tires are going to do and get more acclimated to the track, not being able to test and not being here for 12 months, but other than that I can't learn anything from that car and apply it to my car for tomorrow. It doesn't seem to be working this year."

"A full fuel run, I thought Kevin was maybe a little better at the end of the run, but we could get away so far in the beginning of the run. When you're using the whole track and you've got all of the air, your car works good. On those short runs, and especially in these Busch cars - it's not as bad in the Cup cars - but the Busch cars have such big spoilers and they're slightly underpowered compared to the Cup car, and it's really hard to slip the tires at all for 10 laps. The good tires and the big spoiler and all of that stuff kinda covers up a bad-handling car, or doesn't help the best-handling car until the tires start wearing off. What I was probably talking about, for 10 laps if somebody had new tires it was really hard to pass them because we were all in the gas really hard through the corners. But as their tires started to slip, if your car was handling better than theirs you could make a move and get a run on them and pass them."

"Well, I think he was pretty good anyway. That one real long run that we had, he got right to my bumper and made up a couple seconds running the top side, so I think he had a pretty good car anyway. Putting the car in the front compared to even being second or third improves everybody's car a lot, especially on new tires. The track is wide enough that if we could have got the tires wore down a little bit and the pace backed up a half of a second, you could have looked around for another groove and maybe made a run on him, maybe not, but maybe tried something. On new tires, you just had to run the bottom and run real hard. New tires are kind of like new asphalt - you just pick the shortest way around and there's a lot of stick. I don't know that he got his car that much better. I don't know that it was ever bad. He ran second or third all day and putting it in the front certainly didn't hurt it."