Ford Talladega Truck Qualifying/Advance

General Motors Statement Regarding the Resignation of Jerome B. York from the GM Board of Directors

Talladega Superspeedway October 6, 2006;

Mark Martin, driver of the No. 6 Ford F-150, returned to the Craftsman Truck Series after a one-race hiatus and grabbed his third pole of the season in qualifying for tomorrow's John Deere. Martin, who last competed in the series at New Hampshire in September, has nine starts this season with four victories, including a win from the pole at Bristol. Martin, who now has three career truck series poles and five victories, captured the pole in his 13th career truck series start with a time of 52.523 seconds and an average speed of 182.320 mph. He is joined David Ragan, his Roush Racing teammate, on the front row for tomorrow's inaugural truck series race at the 2.66-mile speedway (52.682 seconds, 181.770 mph).

MARK MARTIN-6-Scotts Ford F-150 (Qualified 1st) - TALK ABOUT YOUR QUALIFYING RUN. "We knew that our Scotts F-150 was fast yesterday. That's our truck from Daytona and the guys have rubbed on it a little bit more. It was really good yesterday so I expected it to be pretty fast today, too. I think the race is going to be really interesting. I think it will be a preview of what's coming for the Cup race. Actually, the practice was fun. Those things are just a lot of fun. They're more like driving the cars back before the days of restrictor plates, 25 years ago. I'm looking forward to tomorrow." YOU MADE YOUR ANNOUNCEMENT FOR NEXT YEAR EARLIER TODAY AND HERE YOU ARE BACK IN THE MEDIA CENTER DISCUSSING YOUR POLE-WINNING RUN IN A ROUSH TRUCK. TALK ABOUT YOUR DAY. "It is a big day, that's for sure. Well, I love driving that 6 truck, I can tell you that. I've said that all year and I still do. That was one of the things that made the decision difficult because I expected that I probably wouldn't be able to do that again next year. But, what the heck, it's still on the top of my list. We'll worry about that later. We've got a championship to chase and we'll worry about truck racing later." WHAT ARE YOUR OPINIONS ON THE NEW RACING SURFACE? "The things that I've seen so far, it's incredibly smooth. The grip is just unbelievable. It seems to be fun. It seems to be, while practice has been pretty calm, it seems to be really good, maybe better than it was. I just hope it doesn't encourage us to get wilder than before. So far it feels more comfortable than the old surface, to run all over and four wide and all of that stuff. The one thing that does concern me is it is very easy to hit the apron. It's hard to see the apron for some reason. I've talked to some other guys that said the same thing - when you touch the apron your car darts to the right. If we're doing a four-wide thing, this could create a situation that we wouldn't want to see. I think right now out there, we're so comfortable that the only issue that we have is keeping up with where everyone is. Two-by-two is nothing keep up with, but the four-by-four thing starts getting crazy and it starts getting really difficult with all of the movement going on out there to keep up with where everyone's at and making sure that you don't make a move that causes someone to get in someone else or something. So far, the surface for me gets real high marks. It's smooth and it's fun." TALK ABOUT THE ISSUE WITH THE APRON. "There's a line, a yellow line and you tend to always push the envelope. Running the bottom, you get right down there on it, and I think that the cars drive like a go-kart so much more on this surface. You just barely have to turn the steering wheel and the car really goes. I think we're oversteering our cars some; I know I have been. It's not that you don't really see it, it's just somehow or another it's easy to get on it and, boy, it doesn't like it. It really pulls the front end down when you touch it with that left front." YOU JUST SAID YOU'RE HAVING FUN AT TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY. "When they drag me in on the hook I'll have something different to tell you (laughs). Yeah, you're right. There's no telling what you're liable to hear come out of my mouth this weekend."

WILL YOU BE BACK HERE NEXT YEAR? "I've been working on my tentative schedule, and Talladega is not on it. Who knows? I might change my mind. The cool thing is that it is up to me. Heck, you heard some words like fun come out of my mouth more than once. If it's fun and I have a blast on Sunday, I'll add it to the list. I have cousins that come down here and visit me every time, and we get to BBQ together and everything, and they're like, 'What are we going to do next year?' Maybe I'll just have to come back and have another BBQ and hang out. As of right now, I was looking at letting Regan get some restrictor-plate experience here and looking at doing the 500, for sure, and probably the 400 at Daytona as well and letting Regan get some restrictor-plate time. I'm going to try to balance it up where he gets a good blend of things, and we really work hard to get him prepared for a full schedule in '08." DID THE TRACK RETAIN ANY OF ITS OLD CHARACTERISTICS? "This race track really drives a lot different. It's huge, and that's the same as it was, but to drive around it, it's quite different. I'll say again, it's been pretty fun. The packs have gotten pretty big and as long as you know where everyone is, and as long as we work real hard to keep up with all that, I think that we can have an awesome race. We may have better racing here than we have had in the past, if that's possible. We've had some great racing, but so far it seems to be working out better than I expected. It can encourage us to get wild, yes. And, it can encourage us to have some problems, but it won't be a loss of control problem until we actually run into one another or force somebody into somebody else. That's something that we're all going to have to use a lot of self control with." THERE DOESN'T SEEM TO BE A LOT OF CONCERN WITH THE SPEEDS BEING TOO EXCESSIVE. WOULD YOU BE SURPRISED TO SEE A PLATE CHANGE? "This weekend? I would. Gosh, I've called it wrong on NASCAR a lot, especially in the later years. It's harder for me to predict. Either I'm getting dumber or they're getting smarter, one or the other. But, yeah, I think everybody is pretty comfortable with what we've got going on. We need to keep these cars going straight. If we keep these cars going straight, it's going to be great for everyone. You know what, there will be more of us at the finish to make it even more exciting if we can keep them all straight." WITH THE AERODYNAMIC PACKAGE OF THE TRUCK BEING CLOSER TO THAT OF THE CAR OF TOMORROW, DO YOU EXPECT MORE CUP DRIVERS TO RUN TRUCK RACES? "It's very possible that the truck could be more like the Car of Tomorrow than the Busch cars. Yeah, that's a reasonable thought right there. I haven't driven the Car of Tomorrow yet. It is fun to race those trucks, I'm telling you that. It's a lot of fun, and right now, in my opinion, it's the best racing in NASCAR and I love it. It's something that if I was going to add to my schedule next year, that's first on my list because I still have a passion for that series." WAS CUP RACING EVER AS MUCH FUN AS YOU'RE HAVING IN THE TRUCK SERIES? "Well, that's all relative. For me, when I first started running good, let's put it that way, in Cup racing it was awfully fun and it still is fun when you run good. The vehicles are different, they're more equal and it's just more of a challenge to do passes and make passes and get your car better than the competition's. There is more in the truck, as of today, to make your truck handle better than someone else's than there is in the incredibly refined Cup garage. But, yeah, Cup racing is fun. You go ask Reed Sorenson or Carl Edwards or one of these guys that haven't done it very long. They're having a blast every day that they have fenders left on them." IT'S BEEN SAID OF TALLADEGA THAT THIS TRACK GIVES YOU ENOUGH ROPE TO HANG YOURSELF. WITH THE SMOOTH SURFACE, IS THERE EVEN MORE ROPE NOW? "I don't want to get that started right away. My prediction was: absolutely, yes. After running on it, I'm not so sure I was right about that. I'm tentatively giving this place high marks and saying that we can have great racing, maybe better than what we've had in the past. I'm seeing the opportunity to make more daring moves than ever before, which may lure us into mayhem, but so far, the practices have been calmer than the practices have in the past almost here. I have great hope that this is going to be fantastic. I think we'll learn more tomorrow, and I think, boy, you better take your heart pills because it's going to be exciting from what I saw with those trucks out there in practice."

DAVID RAGAN-50-Roush Racing Ford F-150 (Qualified 2nd) - TALK ABOUT YOUR QUALIFYING RUN. "It would mean a lot to win the Bud Pole here at Talladega, especially in a Roush truck. But, it's pretty cool because we've got all three trucks in the top 10. I think that our truck is exceptional in the draft, and I think it's going to draft very well along with my other two teammates. We look forward to having a real clean race, and, again, just because our truck is fast by itself, a lot of people tend to think that it might not draft well, but I think there will be 30 to 35 teams out there saying, 'Hey, our truck drafts very well, too.' It should be an exciting race." WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOUR CHANCES ARE FOR GETTING INTO THE NO. 6 CUP CAR NEXT YEAR? "I'm not going to try to think about that the rest of the year. I'm just going to think like I have from Mansfield, Ohio, on. I'm going to think about going out there and being patient and try to improve week-in and week-out, and try to reduce my mistakes to a minimum. I think that's what hurt me some in the beginning of the year. I just got out of line too soon at times, and starting here at Talladega, this is definitely a patience race that we'll have to run tomorrow to be around at the end. So, just to go out and continue to do what I've done all year and try to be patient and make good laps and be fast at times and just try to take care of what I can control, and everything else will take care of itself." COMMENT ON MARK MARTIN'S ANNOUNCEMENT TODAY. "We are losing Mark as a teammate, but we're not losing him as a friend. I think he's still going to be a guy in the garage that we can to go to, and if we have a problem or concern, I think he'll still continue to help us out. It's been real fortunate to have him around this year. He's helped out our truck program along with the learning curve of Erik and I. I think if we still need anything from a driver's standpoint, we'll be able to go to him and talk to him."

ERIK DARNELL-99-Northern Tool + Equipment Ford F-150 (Qualified 6th, Top Rookie) - TALK ABOUT YOUR QUALIFYING EFFORT. "Well, I don't think that qualifying is really going to relate to the race tomorrow. We really didn't know what to expect with our 99 Northern Tools + Equipment F-150. We didn't really get to make a real clean qualifying run yesterday. We know it's a lot better in race trim than where it qualified, though. To end up in the top 10, that's a pretty good deal for us." COMMENT ON MARK MARTIN'S ANNOUNCEMENT TODAY. "Fortunately, even though we are losing Mark, we still have some great teammates like Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards. Carl ran in the truck series and did very well with that, so we can go to him for information as well. While it is unfortunate that we're losing Mark, we still have a wealth of information to pool from." DISCUSS THE ROOKIE-OF-THE-YEAR COMPETITION. "It's definitely been tough. You've got drivers who are aligned with Cup teams, and you have Aric Almirola with Gibbs Racing. You have Kraig Kinser, who was with MB2, is not running the whole thing any more. There are quite a few of us out there who run tough week-in and week out, and we knew coming into this thing that it was going to be tough to win the Rookie-of-the-Year award. Fortunately for us, we had some pretty good races and some of the other rookies have struggled a little bit. We've had our struggles as well, but we've been able to stay ahead of those guys and it looks pretty good going down the stretch here."

It was announced today that Northern Tool + Equipment would sponsor Erik Darnell and the No. 99 Roush Racing Ford F-150 for the final five truck series races of 2006 and full time in 2007. Darnell, who was joined by Roush Racing President Geoff Smith, commented on the sponsorship agreement and Roush's truck series plans for '07.

ERIK DARNELL-99-Northern Tool + Equipment Ford F-150 - "I just wanted to say that this is going to be a great opportunity for me and for everyone here at Roush Racing to have Northern Tool & Equipment on the truck. We're looking to start off strong here at Talladega. This is the same truck we had at Daytona and we had a sixth-place run with it there and we're looking to build upon that here. We're real excited about the five races for this year but even more excited to go on for the next couple of years. It's a great opportunity, again, for me and everyone here and we're looking to go out and work for you guys and help you guys out, and we appreciate you for coming on board." WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES FOR YOU NEXT SEASON? "Well, just to go out there and run well. This has kind of been a learning season for me, being my rookie season in the truck series. We've had some good runs, but we've had some bad runs as well; we've had some DNFs. We're definitely looking to go out there next year and run for the championship. We've got to finish races, we've got to run up front more than we're doing now and I think we're just kinda getting to the point with the team, me and my crew chief, to where we can kind of jell and we're really getting a real good feel for each other. I think it's going to show up for the last couple of races here at the end of the year, and like I said, we're going to go out next year and we're going to be running for wins and running for the championship."

GEOFF SMITH, President-Roush Racing - "Of all of the big teams, Roush Racing is the most bullish on the truck series. We think there's untapped value for sponsors in that series and it's fantastic that Northern Tool has signed up for multiple years as a primary sponsor to be the sponsor behind the development of our young drivers over the next several years. Erik, of course, is the winner of the Discovery Channel 'Driver X' contest and he's doing really well and we're expecting even more from him as the near future unfolds. Not only in the long term, but in the short term." DOES THIS MEAN ERIK WILL BE IN THE TRUCK SERIES NEXT YEAR? "He's going to be in the truck series full time. We're expecting, and I hope that he's expecting, that by the time this year is over and the team is fully jelled and Erik has his full year of experience under his belt that he's going to be a championship contender in that truck next year full time. Now, whether he does more than that, he may be depending on sponsorship teamed up with one of our Cup guys in the Busch Series for some additional experience along the way. His full-time focus for Roush Racing is going to be for Northern Tool and for Roush Racing to win that truck series championship." SO, ERIK IS NOT AUDITIONING FOR THE NO. 6 NEXTEL CUP CAR IN 2007? "Well, by default I guess we just lost one for that contest for the 6 next year. Erik is staying in the truck series and getting another year under his belt. He is still a very young guy with a great future ahead of him as he's been demonstrating all year." IS THERE ANY TRUTH TO THE RUMOR THAT JACQUES VILLENEUVE MIGHT DRIVE A ROUSH VEHICLE NEXT YEAR? "The report came over and was translated from Italian, poorly. I didn't really understand what it said, but if it said that he was going to be in a Roush Racing Cup car, the answer is no, we're full up. If the question is whether he's poked around the garage looking for possible opportunities in NASCAR, the answer is yes. I also think it would be fun and exciting for a 35-year-old Formula 1 world champion to be here. But, we do not have a place in our Cup stable. We are constrained. We can only have five. If would could have six, the next announcement that they're about to make would be different." HOW MANY TRUCK TEAMS WILL YOU HAVE NEXT YEAR? "We're going to have at least two. We'll be announcing our other sponsorship and other driver pretty soon."

Following the formal press conference, Jack Roush commented further on the departure of driver Mark Martin, driver of the No. 6 Ford Fusion, from Roush Racing following the 2006 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup season outside of media center at Talladega Superspeedway.

JACK ROUSH, Owner-Roush Racing - IS THERE ANY TRUTH TO THE RUMOR THAT JACQUES VILLENEUVE MIGHT DRIVE A ROUSH VEHICLE NEXT YEAR? "That's a possibility. I know we're in discussions. He came to see us in Detroit and he's been in Charlotte and had discussion around our program and what he can do and the rate of which he could get up to speed. If he's got the stomach for it and if we can find the sponsorship for it, that's certainly a possibility." WHO WILL BECOME THE NEW LEADER OF ROUSH RACING? "Mark will be missed, but Greg Biffle is the heir apparent. He's the senior guy and he's been with us through the truck series and the Busch series and the Cup Series, and won championships in both of those on his way. This is first opportunity we'll have to see a driver win the championship in all three of NASCAR's top categories. He is an inspiration to the rookies and has helped them every way that he can. The same goes for Matt, and he's only marginally been here less a period of time than Greg. And, Carl Edwards is coming like a thunderstorm. He's anxious to help everybody him. He's very personable, and people likewise present depth in the management of our rookies and the direction of the programs as we go forward." SO, THERE WON'T BE ONE DRIVER THAT CARRIES THE BANNER? "I think that's the case. I personally don't have the view that Roush Racing was all of Mark Martin, and Mark was all of Roush Racing. Certainly, all of the championships that have been won around Mark by the other guys have drawn a lot of attention and demonstrate the balance and ability and commitment on their part." WASN'T MARK MARTIN KNOWN AS ROUSH RACING? "Mark Martin was Roush Racing for the early years, for sure. The simple fact is that things that were important for Mark that he said would be involved in the decision making to what he would do were complex beyond my capability to deal with in the timeframe that I had to deal with them and we were the losers. We weren't able to put forward for him a program that was attractive as the one he was able to get from MB2. I had never thought that I ever be in that kind of a competition for Mark's time, but here we are and we lost." WHO IS GOING TO DRIVE THE NO. 6 CAR? "I'm not sure. There'll be driver. It will be a rookie driver. The AAA program was predicated on a development driver that would generate enthusiasm for them and their employees and their customers going forward. There's Todd Kluever, who is obviously a rookie that we had. If you asked me six months ago, I said it was Todd Kluever, and in the meantime David Ragan has done a nice job. I'm not sure that we're done looking at just the two of them. We've got seven races, and until we fill in the entry blanks at the end of January, I don't have to make a final decision. I don't owe you guys an answer today, nor any time in the foreseeable future. We'll make best decision we can for AAA and the 6 team and for Roush Racing as to who drives the car at the last possible moment." WOULD YOU HAVE EVERY ENVISIONED RACING AGAINST MARK? "In the early years, certainly there was a question as to whether Mark wanted to stay with the program. At least twice when we had discussions around whether you stay or whether you go, and it was a very real possibility at that time. But, as we've moved into our middle ages together - Mark moved into middle age and I've moved out of it - I never really gave this consideration. He was so impassioned to get away from racing, or I felt that two years, that the idea of him making a deal that would be a growth program going forward with another organization was not something that I saw coming." WHAT IS THIS LIKE FOR YOU PERSONALLY? "Well, it's finally over. I've been involved in a struggle for the last 18 to 24 months to present to Mark something was interesting and challenging and workable for him, and I don't have that challenge, so I'm some relieved of that."

ARE YOU SAD ON A PERSONAL LEVEL? "Well, I went to sleep last night and I slept all night. I didn't have any troubles staying awake knowing what I was going to be faced with today. There's a bit of personal disappointment, I guess, in the fact that we weren't able as an organization, and with Ford as a partner, to put together something for Mark that was as attractive as what Jay and the MB2 bunch were able to do. But, I'll move on from that. We've got seven races in front of us and we may win a championship. I don't know how he'll feel if we're able to win the championship for him and he's made a commitment to leave and go do something else. We'll get past all that, and there'll be 36 races plus a couple more next year that we'll have to face, and we'll go week to week dealing with whatever is in front of us at the time, and very quickly the challenges of the moment overshadow the disappoints of the past." WHEN DID MARK TELL YOU OF HIS DECISION? "Last Saturday. A week ago from tomorrow." DID YOU TRY TO GET HIM TO CHANGE HIS MIND? "The fight was out of me. He said, 'I've got an offer to go do 20 races in a Cup program with guys that I think I can help and with an expectation that is maybe not as great as it would be for what you've got for me.' He said, 'I'm able to pick which races I go to and really cherry-pick and make it suit me and the race tracks I want to be at.' He said, 'That gives me flexibility that there's never afforded by Jack or Roush Rating.' He's anxious to have that this point in his life."